"You called," the Dark One said.

Belle had a strange moment of clarity. She could see herself, her mind closing down in horror, holding Bae and rocking him. Bae was still and pale as death. She was overwhelmed with the knowledge she had failed, failed at the one thing that had made all the years endurable. She had promised herself and the gods and (above all else) Rumplestiltskin's soul, wherever it might be, she would protect their son. She would do whatever was necessary to protect Bae and keep him alive. When the worst happened, when she thought she couldn't endure the pain and humiliation another moment, she remembered Bae and went on.

If he was dead, everything she'd done was meaningless. Silencing the screams in her mind as she did as she was told—and smiling as she did it—it meant nothing. She'd bought her life with the betrayal of every good memory she had, her mother's hopes for her, her husband's love, and it had been for nothing. She'd failed Bae.

She remembered clutching her locket, screaming.

In that moment, whether she was begging for help or judgment, she knew who she had called on.

Almost as if he were answering her, the Dark One said, "I had to come."

She looked at him, really looked at him, scaled face and lizard eyes, the voice always either too high or too deep, never just in the range of the one she remembered. But, the way he sometimes spoke to her, the wit and sharp mind lying behind his mad humor, his moments of kindness, and the way he sometimes looked at her—the way he was looking at her now—she recognized these things. . . .

He'd changed, he said, when he gained his power.

He'd had a wife, a wife who was gone when he returned to his village. The people told him she'd become a rich man's mistress. He'd found his son again, he'd told her, but his son hadn't recognized him.

His anger towards her when they'd first met, as if she'd wronged him—as if she had wronged him, not someone like her, not some memory, her.

She'd been the one who had said it, Bae is your child, now, as much as mine. Later, when he'd called Bae our child, she'd thought he was only echoing what she'd already admitted, but perhaps he'd meant something more. . . .

". . . . Yes," she whispered.

No. Yes. It was the truth. She knew it. A thousand pieces suddenly fit together perfectly. But she didn't believe it. She'd been half-crazed with grief when she found Bae. It had been midday and, now, it looked to be hours past sunset. She didn't remember any of that time except for a feeling of choking, dark horror closing in on her. Belle thought she'd been mad—perhaps she was mad now, thinking such an insane thing, believing it. She needed proof—

And she remembered the room she'd found him in so many weeks ago, looking at the doll of his dead foster-daughter, a doll of the sort she could imagine Rumplestiltskin making for a child, in a princess dress of sunshine yellow with hair and eyes the same color as—as—

. . . . The same color as hers.

If . . . if she was right. . . . She knew how Rumplestiltskin thought, how he did things. She remembered his weaving supplies, neatly laid out in his work area, his loom and his wheel, his dyes tidily lined up by color, and ingredients for making more carefully organized by a more complex system of his own.

"Do you—" Belle stopped. Did she want to ask this? She looked into the Dark One's sad, kind eyes. There was peace between them, a feeling of safety. What if she destroyed that? This might be nothing more than a moment's madness from her overstretched nerves.

And what if she was right? The truth could also destroy this small peace they'd found.

Belle took a deep breath. "Do you remember when I found you looking at—looking at Morraine's doll?"

The Dark One went still, the way Belle did when she sensed danger. ". . . . Yes."

"You said—or I thought—you kept mementos there. Treasures. From your past?"

His eyes became dark, unfathomable. "Yes."

"From. . . ." and, now she took a deep breath, preparing for the plunge into that darkness. "From before you were—were the Dark One?"

"Yes."

Belle stroked Bae's hair. Her son was alive and well. What more did she need to know? Whoever and whatever the Dark One was, she knew she could trust him to do everything in his power to protect Bae. Wasn't that enough? Why did she need more? "Could you show me? Please?"

The Dark One helped her up. He picked up Bae, who was already showing signs of being tired (the Dark One had been right about that) and curled up against the wizard, trying not to yawn. The Dark One managed to hold the little boy with one arm, holding her hand with the other.

They had touched before, but Belle hadn't thought before—or hadn't let herself think—about how his skin felt. It wasn't human. She had met a noblewoman once who had a purse made of incredibly small, unbelievably thin circles of brass all linked together. It had moved as supplely as cloth when she let Belle examine it and had felt like water running through her fingers. The Dark One's scaled hand was like that, only warm where those metal links had been cold.

When they reached the storage room, the Dark One let her go, making a small gesture at the door to open it, then standing aside to let her pass. She saw—she thought she saw knowledge in his eyes, like a condemned man stoically waiting for his turn at the hangman's noose.

Belle stepped into the room. It had the same neat tidiness as Rumplestiltskin's supplies. There was no smell of dust or decay. Several of the trunks gave off the strong scent of cedar (mothbane, they'd called it in the Frontlands). There were other smells of things cleaned and cared for. She was tempted to ask the Dark One where the things she was looking for would be, just to see what he would say. Instead, she made it into another test, to prove if she was right or wrong (or sane or mad).

If Rumplestiltskin had arranged these. . . . She went over to the sheets put over what she supposed were pieces of furniture. If she was right, old things from the Frontlands would be . . . here.

She looked at one large shape beneath a white cloth. A bed, dismantled, its pieces carefully stored, might look like that. Instead of looking at that one, she chose a smaller cloth and pulled it aside.

There was a cradle underneath. The wood was carefully (lovingly?) oiled. She remembered going to the village carpenter, a man too old to go to war, to have it made, spending some of the precious coins from the small hoard buried in the secret spot beneath the floorboards. It was made from driftwood cast up by the sea. The lumbermen, along with the rest of the able-bodied, were gone to fight. The good wood that was still being harvested was saved for the war.

Belle heard the clicking sound of a chest being unlocked. She looked over and saw that the lid of one of them slightly propped open. She didn't look at the Dark One, much as she wanted to. Instead, she went over and pushed the lid all the way back.

Lying on top of a carefully folded quilt with what looked like a familiar pattern (but, she told herself, she couldn't see it clearly. It didn't mean anything) was something wrapped in thin, delicate paper covered in spidery handwriting she couldn't read. Cautiously (you could never be certain what you were dealing with in the Dark One's castle, after all, even if she trusted him not to toss anything too dangerous her way), Belle unfolded it.

It was her wedding wreath.

There are her mother's roses, dried and carefully preserved. There is the spot where she snipped away a rosebud to make a luck charm and a remembrance for her husband going off to war. Impossible as it was after so many years, when she took it out, the scent of the flowers wafted up to her.

Lying under them were the remnants of the comb Rumplestiltskin had given her when they first met.

"It's broken," she said. Had he smashed it? Destroyed it when he found her gone?

"I found it that way," he told her. His voice was rough and hoarse, yet familiar. He wasn't trying to disguise it anymore. "Lying by our—by our bed."

Our bed.

Belle closed her eyes. That was the truth, then. He was—he really was—

"I thought you'd broken it," the Dark One said. He sounded as if he were pleading for her understanding.

He'd thought she'd broken it. He'd thought she'd betrayed him and left his gift shattered in her wake.

"No, I. . . ." She closed her eyes again, wishing she could forget that day. "It—it was my first day of mourning. I was wearing it. In memory." Her hand went to the locket again. She'd been a widow a year and not known it. Except she'd never been a widow, had she? "When Hordor came . . ." He'd demanded—demanded—she marry him, demanded she send Bae away to die.

But, Rumplestiltskin hadn't been dead. She hadn't been a widow.

She'd imagined a thousand times how that day might have played out differently. If she'd kept her temper. If she'd—if she'd accepted Hordor's offer but convinced him to let her keep Bae—if—if—

All of that changed if Hordor knew Rumplestiltskin lived.

Belle looked at the comb. This, at least, was a comprehensible mystery. "It must have been knocked out. I—I didn't have it when they locked me up." She imagined Hordor, angry, vengeful, going back into the house after she was taken away. "I—I suppose he stepped on it. I suppose he ground it beneath his heel." And, then, he had done the same to her. "That—that would be like him."

She put the comb back. This was insane. It wasn't possible. Rumplestiltskin had been a simple spinner, without magic or power. She looked at the Dark One, the inhuman lines of his scaled face and the sad pleading in his eyes.

"You can't be him."

He changed the way he had that night at the inn. Only, this time he didn't become Gaston, or Jones, or a snake-eyed manservant. He became Rumplestiltskin.

Only, it wasn't Rumplestiltskin. She could have told herself it was a lie if he'd been the Rumplestiltskin she remembered. This man was older, his face marked with weariness and sadness. He stood in the Dark One's fine clothes with a poise a peasant weaver would never have found even while his eyes fixed on her with fear to see how she would react.

There was also a coldness in him, she thought, a hardness the man she'd loved had never learned. He was the man who had threatened to tear her child away from her, who had worked her to exhaustion trying to get her to leave.

"No. You can't be. You can't."

"We met at the fair in Longbourne," the Dark One said. "I mended a tear in your dress and danced with you. I met your mother afterwards, and she didn't think I was good enough for you." He grimaced slightly, as if he agreed with her. "I never knew why she let me come to dinner. The roses in your wedding wreath, they're from a bush your mother nursed through our harsh winters. On—on our wedding night, you had a nightgown of fine cambric your mother had given you. Your hair smelled of roses. . . ."

Belle remembered. She remembered the frightened awe Rumplestiltskin had looked at her with, afraid to touch her for fear of doing something wrong. She had been equally innocent and afraid—but anxious for things she couldn't quite understand, wanting the looks he gave her—as though she were the most wonderful thing in the world and he couldn't quite believe she was real and not a dream—to spill over into his touch, into his lips brushing against hers. And, she had hoped that he could see something equally wondering in the way she looked at him. . . .

For seven years, not a day had gone by that she hadn't thought of him, mourned him, known in her heart that things would be different if only he'd lived.

Belle didn't remember crossing the distance between them but she was pounding her fists on the chest of the most powerful wizard in the world, shouting, "Where were you? I needed you! I needed you!" over and over again.

His arms closed protectively around her, as if she were the one being hurt, not him. He was answering her, telling her how Hordor lied—to him as well as her. He'd believed—he'd believed she'd left him. For Jones. He was explaining things about his magic, things she didn't understand.

Only she looked up at him, trying to ask one question without being able to find the words.

Was he real? Was any of this real, or had she gone mad at last?

She looked at him, not knowing how to say any of the things bursting inside her. Suddenly, he fell silent, no longer trying to explain anything. His lips brushed against hers, gently, tenderly, the way he had on that long ago wedding night when they were both just learning the dance of love. It had opened for both of them, as softly as a flower, with no hint that it could ever be a weapon or a source of pain.

She had forgotten it was even possible for a man to touch her like this. . . .

"Ewww," Bae interrupted. "What are you doing?"

Belle pulled back from the Dark One—from Rumplestiltskin—realizing what she had been doing in front of her son. The Dark One let her go, though there was nothing embarrassed in the warmth in his eyes as he looked at her. He knelt down in front of Bae. "Baelfire," he said. "Do you understand what your mama and I were talking about?"

Baelfire shook his head. Emphatically. He didn't know and he didn't want to know—not if it had to do with kissing.

"Years ago, I fell under a very powerful curse. It's how the Dark One becomes the Dark One. Your mama has seen through that curse. She knows who I really am." He looked up at Belle, and she felt an ache in her heart. She knew that warmth and good humor. That had been the same look in his eyes whenever they had faced a problem together back before the war.

"Rumplestiltskin," Belle whispered. "He's your father, Bae. He's Rumplestiltskin."

That had hardly been the end of the conversation. Bae had a thousand questions. You didn't tell a child the father he'd never known—that he'd grown up thinking was dead—was the mighty wizard who had whisked him away to live in his magic castle without a great many questions being asked.

The story Rumplestiltskin wove was one of evil villains (Hordor, Jones) and valiant heroes (Rumplestiltskin, Belle). Like a child's tale, the poor commoner suffered under the villains till the day came when he had to fight them and emerged victorious. But, that was only the beginning of his long quest to find the loved ones the evil villains had taken from him.

"But, I was still blind," he told Bae. "The villains had made a net with words to keep me from ever looking for your mama again."

Rumplestiltskin then proceeded to tell his son a fairy tale. It was the story the way it should have been, stripped bare of all the pain and nearly all of the lies and stupidity (or that was what she thought Rumplestiltskin almost called it, a look of self-loathing in his eyes), a story about a man who survived the wars when he was believed to have died and became a mighty wizard. But, an enemy who hated the man and his wife had made false accusations against her and seen her sold as a slave. When the man returned home alive, the enemy had made a cunning net spun out of lies.

Rumplestiltskin didn't call it a spell, but Belle doubted Bae really understood there were ways to spin and weave with words that had nothing to do with magic—and those were often the most powerful nets to fall into. Rumplestiltskin didn't say it made him forget Belle, either. If he implied it, well, she could see him saying in the half-smile he gave her, it was only a fairy tale kept simple for a little boy. He couldn't be expected to keep track of everything, could he?

And Rumplestiltskin said he had forgotten Belle—or the truth about her—and he not been able to recognize her when he saw her, not the real Belle.

Belle wondered who the real Belle was. She thought of all the times she had smiled for Gaston and the look on his face when she took his dagger. She thought of telling Jones whatever it was he wanted to hear and the fierce joy—the relief—she had felt when she heard he was dead.

Rumplestiltskin went on with his tale. His enemy had made a mistake. The man in the story may have forgotten his wife but he had never forgotten his son, despite never seeing him or holding him in his arms. When he became a wizard (which was another, longer story he wouldn't be telling tonight), he had searched the world for what he knew was the most important little boy in the whole world. When he found the child was trapped in a cursed realm, he had spent centuries finding the way to break the curse and save him.

And, even though he hadn't known his wife when he saw her, he had taken her with him because he could see how she loved that little boy and how much the little boy loved her.

"He wasn't kind to her at first," Rumplestiltskin told Bae. "Not kind as he should be. But, little by little, his heart began to remember her, breaking free from the net of lies his enemy had made. As that happened," he looked at Belle uncertainly, as if hoping she would agree with what he was about to say. "She began to—to recognize the heart of the man she'd known. Till, one day, she demanded he show her a room where he had kept all the precious treasures from his past, even if he didn't always know why they were precious to him. She found their son's cradle and her wedding wreath. She found the precious comb her husband had given to her and her enemy had broken. She knew him then. And, when she looked at him, recognizing him, he knew her as well. . . ."

That was hardly the end of it. There was nothing in the world like a small boy for questions. Rumplestiltskin continued answering, weaving everything he could into a story with no dark horrors hidden inside it, one that went right alongside what he had already told Bae, that he was the special child he had bargained for with Lord Maurice, that it was because of Bae Rumplestiltskin had been there to save his mother from the Marchlands.

Belle thought he'd been afraid when he began this tale, as if Bae would be disappointed when he discovered this was his papa, but Rumplestiltskin's son's eyes glowed as he looked up at his father. Bae demanded stories from Rumplestiltskin about the past. Till, somewhere in the midst of them, he drifted off to sleep.

X

Rumplestiltskin watched his wife (his wife, now, there was a beautiful phrase) as she kept her eyes fixed on their son. She watched the rise and fall of his chest and looked at the pink flush in his cheeks, full of life. She ran a hand through his hair, feeling the living warmth, so different from the way he'd been under the curse. Finally, she managed to tear her eyes away from his sleeping form and look at Rumplestiltskin, a mix of sadness and happiness in her face as she met his gaze. With a bittersweet smile, keeping her voice low so as not to wake Bae, she whispered, "You lied to him."

Ah, yes. Let's start with the truth between us this time, shall we? But, he thought, from the look in her eyes, Belle meant to forgive him. "Well, I can't tell him about all the things I did wrong, can I?"

She flushed. "I don't mean. . . . What you told him. About me."

He quickly thought over the story he'd made, wondering what she objected to. "It was true enough. You saw the truth about me."

Belle shook her head. "Not that. I mean. . . . Rumpl—My lord. A—a man in the Marchlands who finds his wife bedding another man has a right to kill her."

Rumplestiltskin reeled back as if she'd hit him. It took him a moment to find words to reply. "Then they're barbarians. At least, Gaston makes sense, now."

"Frontlands law allows it, too."

"It doesn't—" Oh. That law. "It's not a right. It's a—" No, wait, mitigating circumstance in a murder trial wasn't the issue. Or that a woman could claim the same defense. Or that it only applied if—"That's beside the point. I'm not—Do you think I'm going to kill you? Now? After everything?"

Belle glanced at Bae. Rumplestiltskin wasn't keeping his voice down. He cast two, quick spells, wrapping Bae tighter in sleep and keeping their words from reaching him. "You judged me before," Belle said, still keeping her voice low. "You were right, I didn't deserve to be your servant. I betrayed you—every memory I had of you. I—"

Rumplestiltskin knelt at her feet, taking her hands in his. "Belle, everything—everything—that happened to you is because I failed you. I wasn't there to stop Hordor. I never even tried to get you back from Jones. I—When I knew I had to break the curse, I was thinking of Bae. I never—" the words choked off as he thought about all the things he had brushed aside. He bowed his head over the back of her hands, kissing them. "—I never thought about what you were suffering, that you needed to be rescued, too. Gods, Belle," he groaned, looked up at her, knowledge cutting him like a knife. "If you hadn't fought for Bae when I came for him, I would have left you there. I would have abandoned you to that—that—" Monster wasn't a word he could use without irony. "—that selfish, butchering, child-murdering rapist." There, that was better than monster. "I would have—"

Belle put her hand over his mouth. "He wasn't—Gaston never forced me. I—I chose—"

"Chose. The way you 'chose' Jones? Because one brutal torturer you might survive was better than two dozen who would have killed you? And left Bae to die? Was that the choice you meant?"

"He didn't—he never forced me. You have to believe that."

Which still left him a selfish, butchering, child-murderer. Which was beside the point right now. Tightening his grip on her hands, he looked up at her and asked as gently as he could, "Did he ever ask you? Even once?"

"He—he let me be when—when I was sick. And—and sometimes—when I was too tired."

"But, did he ask you?"

"Lord Maurice told us both. . . ." she trailed off. "Maurice discussed it with him, first. So, Gaston told me. Because he was his heir and—and Maurice wanted him to know wouldn't force him to marry me. Not unless we had a child."

"He wouldn't force Gaston. I see."

"It wasn't like. . . ." Belle trailed off. She bit her lip the way she did when she thought things over. "It . . . was like that. But . . . but that's not the point. You were alive. Alive. And I—"

"You did what you were forced to. And you kept yourself and Bae alive." He kissed the back of her hand again, wishing he dared to do more. But, not now. Not when they were talking about Gaston and Jones and what they had done to her. "I wish I could just wash away your pain, Belle. But, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're alive and that I can beg your forgiveness for all the ways I failed you. I'm glad I have the chance to—to try and make things right."

"You don't—you didn't do anything wrong. You're the one who should be angry. You did nothing wrong. Nothing."

He shook his head, wondering if he could list all his sins so she would understand them. "I wasn't there when you needed me. When I came home, I believed Hordor's lies, that you'd chosen to run off with another man—rather than face the shame of being my wife. I didn't—I didn't search for you—"

"You'd have died," Belle said. "If it was before you had your power, Jones would have killed you. Like he killed that old man."

He could see the pain of that memory in her eyes—and the pain of being able to do nothing to save the girl, Verna, the one the old man had been trying to save. This time, Rumplestiltskin did reach out to her, cupping her cheek in his hand and caressing it. "If I'd been wise. . . . I might have petitioned Jones' king. He was known to be merciful to commoners who begged his aid." Politics or kind-heartedness, Rumplestiltskin didn't know, but either one would have served. "All I would have had to do was pay your bond. And not give Jones a chance to skewer me."

Belle flinched. He let his hand drop away from her face. "Don't—don't joke about it."

"I'm sorry," he said, bowing his head, his hair brushing the backs of her fingers. "I know—I saw men die in the healers tents. Men I knew. I should know not to make light of it." But, the war and his failures in it weren't what he needed to talk to her about. "I . . . just accepted it. That I couldn't save you. That you didn't need to be saved. Those were lies, and you were the one who paid for them.

"Then, when I had the power to save you . . . I didn't. I did everything I could to save Bae, and that saved you from the curse and Gaston in the end. But, it's no credit to me that it happened. I failed you, Belle. And I'm sorry. I've been sorry since I saw the scars on your back and realized how wrong I'd been. About everything. Worse, I realized I'd just been one more man who hurt you when I should have done everything in my power to help you."

"If—if you thought that. . . ." there was a rumble of emotion in Belle's voice. This, Rumplestiltskin thought, must be close to what happened when she finally struck out at Gaston. He felt a strange kind of relief, hoping she was about to turn her anger out at him, where it ought to be, instead of at herself. ". . . then why—why—would you let me marry Gaston? Why didn't you send him away or just tell me. If I'd known who you were—that you were alive—why didn't you tell me?"

He bowed his head again. This time, he resisted the urge to do more than keep his grip on her hands, much as he wanted—he wanted—But, that was the point, wasn't it? What he wanted. "For a long time," he said in a low voice. "I was a stupid fool. I was angry. When I had no right to be. Then, when I knew the truth . . . I couldn't . . . I didn't. . . ."

Belle's voice was calm and empty. Dead and defeated, he thought. "You didn't want a whore for a wife."

Rumplestiltskin strangled back a string of curses. In his present state, he might set the room on fire (or worse) if he let them loose. "It's not about what I want. It's about what you need. You're the most amazing woman who's ever lived. If I had the power to make you a goddess and could spend the rest of eternity groveling at your feet, it would be better than I deserve—and if you got tired of tripping over me and decided to turn me into a bug and crush me, it wouldn't be a tenth—a hundredth—a thousandth of what I have coming to me after the way I failed you.

"But, that still wouldn't be what you needed. And, as far as I could tell, you didn't need another man claiming the right to be in your bed, and to hell with what you thought."

"It wouldn't have—"

"Wouldn't it? Belle, I have no right to call myself your husband. Every oath I made when we were married—to love, to honor, to cherish and protect—I failed in those. You owe me nothing. But, I owe you. To make up for all the things I did wrong, to try and pay you back for everything you've suffered." And for saving our son, he thought but didn't say, knowing that would be the only thing Belle heard if he did say it. He knew she had only let herself—and forced herself—to survive because of Bae, but he wanted her to know her life was valuable because it was hers, that his debt—and his failure—would be just as great if Bae had never been born.

He treasured the beautiful son fate had given them, despite how little he deserved him; but he also blessed his existence because, thanks to Bae, Belle was here. He had taken Belle away from the Marchlands, he had learned how wrong he had been and how much he needed Belle's forgiveness.

And he had the chance to beg for that forgiveness. If only Belle would realize how great his wrongs were before brushing them aside and saying there was nothing to forgive.

"I told myself, if you found someone to love, someone who could be worthy of you and make you happy, you deserved to have that. I had no right to stand in your way." He grimaced. "I didn't expect you to pick Gaston."

Belle smiled weakly. "I didn't pick him. Not in the end. I. . . ." Uncertainly, as if she expected him to fight her, Belle helped him up. Rumplestiltskin scrambled to get up on the bed and sit beside her. "I . . . think you're what—what I need. What I feel safe with." She leaned in and kissed him. It was an uncertain kiss, Rumplestiltskin thought. Not like the first time they had kissed. She had been sure of herself, then. Her eyes had been glowing and she had been breathless from dancing as they drew aside into the shadow of the trees.

This was more like their wedding night, when they had finally been alone in their room, standing a few feet apart in front of the bed neither one of them had the courage to look at. Belle had touched his cheek and leaned in, giving him a kiss that trembled, as light and uncertain as the wings of a frightened butterfly. And he had found it easier to concentrate on the feeling of the cloth of her nightgown—a finely made cambric, better crafted than anything he had ever seen in the Frontlands—than on the warm body inside it. . . .

Except that, that night, they had both wanted everything they had reached for so uncertainly. Tonight . . . he let himself believe she meant it, that she needed the safety he'd tried so hard to give her, but there was no matching desire in her eyes. No fear, either. But, no desire.

Still, he let himself caress her cheek and lean his forehead against hers. "I love you," he whispered. "Even when—when I told myself I hated you, yours was the form the siren took when I visited her spring." He let himself kiss her, the way he had earlier, gentle and without demand. Then, he pulled away. "The one thing I want, Belle—more than anything—is to never see you look at me the way I saw you look at Gaston, smiling because he expected you to smile, being with him because—because you were expected to let him use you."

Belle pulled back, but she said, "I—I do love you. I always loved you."

Or the memory of the man—the much better man—he'd been. He smiled crookedly at her. "And I will always love you. And that's why I never want to see you hurt again. And, if I asked anything more of you tonight, it would hurt you. So, I won't ask it. Not tonight, not ever. Not till—till you're ready to ask me." He gave her that uneven smile again. "And convince me you aren't just taking pity on an old man when you do it. All right?"

Belle looked like she would protest, but he could see the small shadow of relief in her eyes. Sharing a man's bed had been something she'd learned to endure. Any enjoyment was so long ago and buried beneath so much pain, he wasn't sure she would ever be able to remember it.

But, she could remember what it was to feel safe. That much, he could give her.

"Thank you," Belle said. She leaned closer to him. His small spell was wearing off. He could feel the exhaustion in her. "Would you—would you stay with me, tonight? Not—not as a lover. I just—I'm afraid to be alone." She sounded very small as she said the last. When had she been able to tell anyone she was afraid? Or lonely? And trust them to care or not use it against her?

"Of course," he said, stroking her hair the way he had after he found her in her home, Gaston's dead body lying only a few feet away.

She'd worn her hair up, he remembered, letting the scars on her back peep up along her collar. They'd been coming loose after the frenzy of her attack on Gaston (good riddance to him) and had come down entirely as Rumplestiltskin used magic to clean away the bits of blood.

"Would you . . . if you would like, the scars on your back, I can heal them, make them go away." She stiffened in his arms. "Not if you don't want," he added hastily. "Or if you want to think about it. I understand."

"It's not that," Belle said slowly. "It's . . . you said . . . I didn't need Gaston to give me an honorable name. You told me I—I had made choices, brave choices. To save Bae. To try and save that girl. But . . . Jones, Gaston, Lord Maurice . . . so many people have said—have told me that what—what happened to me was—was nothing. And you said they were wrong. I—I believe you. I think. But, without those scars . . . it would be as if it never happened. Not to them. I'm not—I'm not ready for that."

He kissed her brow. Nothing more. A quick, chaste kiss. He could find other ways to convince Maurice that being flogged wasn't nothing—that being helpless and being tortured by two dozen men larger and stronger than you wasn't "nothing" either. But, Belle wouldn't like that. "As you wish, sweetheart."

Belle lay down beside Bae. Rumplestiltskin suspected she wanted to spend hours watching him, reassuring herself that he was alive, but his spell was almost completely gone. She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

He lay down beside her, keeping his promise, his arms wrapped around her. Even in her sleep, he could feel some of the tension ease out of her at his touch. Her breathing grew easier as she rested against him.

It was enough, he thought. If this was all Belle could ever accept from him, it was enough that she felt so safe with him that even his touch could give her the peace she needed. This was what she needed from him. He would never ask her for more.