Chapter Three

Exactly one week after his lunch with Henry Rumplestiltskin could count the number of hours he'd slept on two hands. If the ritual hadn't been set up before when the nightmares had only consisted of Zelena's hold over him and Bae's death playing on repeat in his mind - and that only was a terrible thing within itself - then it was now. The nightmares were coming every night, changing in small ways as if to mock him into thinking he could escape them. He woke screaming, having lived through his own death each time. Not even Zelena had put him through this sort of physical torture when she held his dagger, though she might have been able to come close.

"Rumple," Belle murmured softly from behind, alerting him of her presence before she wrapped her arms around his middle and pressed her cheek against his back. They stood like that in the dark of the kitchen for several long moments, his heart still pounding loud enough that he was sure she could have heard it from the stairs. She sighed and he leaned heavily on the kitchen counter in front of him. "I've been patient," she whispered as she released him, moving into his line of sight. "What's going on?"

"I don't-"

"Want to talk about it. I know, but Rumple, it's not just you it's affecting."

He grimaced at the worried look in her clear eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Then let me in. When you have me your dagger you gave me your trust, didn't you?"

He flinched. "Are you ordering me?"

Her expression shifted from confused, to angry, and then to frustration all in a brief flash. "Is that what you think of me?" she whispered and her voice was hurt.

Rumplestiltskin knew immediately it had been the wrong question and he reached out to her hesitantly. "No, of course not."

She took his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. "I trust you because I love you. I don't always understand you, but that's often because you keep it all in. Rumple, please. I'm not going anywhere. You're not going to frighten me away or whatever other crazy idea you've got locked away in that clever mind of yours. Trust me."

He loosed a shaky breath and pulled her close, burying his nose in her hair and feeling her arms go around him again. This woman - this brave, strong woman - had chosen him and now he needed to choose to trust her where he could. "I've had these nightmares," he began.

"Of that I'm fully aware," she answered, letting go and moving around the counter. He watched her as she padded across the kitchen, eyes fixed on her as she grabbed the kettle off the stove and turned the sink on to fill it with water. "I'm just making tea," she explained and he nodded, feeling an utter fool. Her voice was strained but soft, and he knew how much he'd put her through.

"They change a little every time, but the gist is the same," he said slowly. "The entire town - save you and Henry - are convinced that I've somehow brought about the untimely demise of Miss Swan."

Belle paused briefly, filling the kettle too full and having to pour some out. He saw the question there and for some reason it hurt. It shouldn't. She knew he was monster, knew what he was capable of. The question was a legitimate one. "No, I didn't kill her."

"I know," she answered without missing a beat. "It's just... This is what's woken you each night for a week? Rumple, this has to be more than a dream."

"I know."

"Are you looking into it?"

"Of course I am," he snapped and immediately pulled back, an apology tumbling from his lips. He'd begun this, now he had to prove he trusted her. He had to prove it to Belle and to himself. He swallowed hard as she set the kettle back onto the stove. "Henry's been having the same dreams. Down to the end."

Belle perked as if she remembered something and she pulled his phone from her robe pocket. "Henry called. It was one of the reasons I followed you down." He reached for the phone and she held it in he hand a moment. "How does it end?"

Well, he'd never doubted how clever she was. "I die. Each and every time," he whispered and she released the phone as it began to buzz in her hand. "Hey, Henry."

"Grandpa?" The single word cracked as if the boy had stopped crying only to start again when he heard his grandfather's voice.

Belle still looked horrified by his last words to her and he rounded the counter to pull her into his arms. "I'm right here. Are you alright?" he directed towards his grandson.

"Yeah," he sniffed. "I'm sorry. It's just... I was right there. I didn't come in after it happened before... I saw him kill you."

Rumplestiltskin pulled Belle just a little closer. The kettle started to sing at just the wrong time and he barely twitched a finger, repositioning it on a cool part of the stove. His own nightmare has been particularly terrible that night, with Belle and Henry's screams in his ears and seemingly the whole town descending in him. He'd felt bones break under blows given by people he was fairly certain had never struck another person in their life and it had reminded him of the weeks he'd spent after he'd broken his ankle in the Ogres War, but before they'd sent him away. He couldn't fight back. Dreams did that, he knew, but this wasn't just a dream.

"Henry," he murmured, trying to find something to say. They'd been comparing the dreams each day after Henry was through with school. The boy would come by the shop, notebook in hand, and would never have to look at the paper as he dictated what he saw. It was etched into his mind just as deeply as it was his grandfather's. After he'd finish there was rarely any reason for Rumplestiltskin to repeat his own. The two often ran parallel.

Belle untangled herself from his arms reluctantly to see to the tea and Henry gave another sniff on the other end of the line. "Could you do something?"

"Of course," Rumplestiltskin answered a little easier than he would have for anyone else.

"Could you come open the front door? It's freezing out here."

It took his sleep deprived mind a moment to process the words and then he nearly dropped the phone in his haste to turn and get to the front door. "Rumple?" Belle called after him, confusion lining her voice, but he didn't take the moment it would have needed to answer. Instead magic flipped the locks and he pulled the door open, finding Henry standing on his doorstep.

He looked younger in that moment, buried in layers of a jacket over a sweater over clothes. He had a hat pulled down around his ears and his scarf up around his chin. The tip of his nose was bright red and he sniffed again, moving forward and wrapping his arms around his grandpa's middle. Rumplestiltskin stood there a moment, unsure quite how to respond, but then slowly returned the embrace.

"Henry?" Belle called in surprise, rushing forward even as she tightened her robe around her shoulders. She immediately started brushing snow off onto the floor and plucked the snow cap from his head. "What in the worlds are you doing here so late?" She looked up at Rumple like he had some sort of explanation.

"I'm sorry. I guess you guys might have been sleeping."

"Rarely any of that going on anymore," Rumplestiltskin snorted and Belle grabbed a quilt from the couch in the den, swapping it for the snow covered coat.

Henry pulled it closer around him. "I woke up and I couldn't breathe. It just felt so stuffy in the apartment, so I thought I'd step outside. Everyone was sleeping and I didn't want to wake them up, and by the time I called you I was almost here."

"Your mother doesn't know you're here?" Belle asked and Henry shook his head.

"I'll send her a text."

"That's going to be a fun conversation," Rumplestiltskin groused and Belle shot him a look.

"The feeling didn't go away when I got outside, so I thought maybe something was wrong. Like… whatever spell that whoever cast might have been coming after me or something. I don't know. It's stupid."

"It's not stupid," his grandfather said immediately. "Nor do I think it was the spell itself."

Belle lifted an eyebrow and he didn't like the look she was wearing. "It sounds like a panic attack. Not that we know anyone in his family that he could have inherited that from."

Henry finished typing out his message and looked up at him and in that moment Rumplestiltskin saw more resemblance to Bae at that age than he'd ever seen in the boy before. It was the small things. The way that worry shown in his eyes and the fact that he looked like he wasn't quite sure what to do with his hands now that they weren't bounding in all direction in some story or another. "Can I stay?"

"'Course, Henry," his grandfather managed, his voice betraying him even then.

"I'm going to finish putting the tea together and bring it up. Sneezy said it was supposed to help you sleep when he sold it to me."

Henry didn't speak any more than Rumplestiltskin did as he followed the elder man up the old stairs and to a spare bedroom just down from his own. He looked as exhausted as Rumple felt, and as he watched the boy peel off his boots and socks and pull back the warm covers of a bed that probably had never actually been slept in before he tried to offer a smile. "We'll fix this, Henry."

"I've been asking around - quietly, like you said - and if anyone is having any weird dreams, they don't remember them. Why is it just us?"

"I don't know, but I'll find out."

"I know you will," Henry answered as he crawled under the covers and peeked up at his father's father. "I've never been in here before."

"This room?"

"Your house."

"I suppose you haven't," he breathed the response, glancing back to the hall where Belle was bound to be coming up the stairs any time now.

"I like it. Did Dad ever sleep here when he was in Storybrooke?"

"No," Rumplestiltskin answered sadly. "He never did. We didn't… Well we really didn't have time before everything happened what with Pan and then Zelena. We didn't have time." He felt his own walls threatening to shatter and loose all the pain he kept hidden back behind them. He should have made time for Bae. His precious boy that he'd looked for for so long. He'd had him, and even then he hadn't known how to love him the way he needed to be loved. They'd spoken a couple of times in the shop after they'd come back from Neverland and they'd planned for Bae to come by the house, but it hadn't happened. He hadn't appreciated the time they had before he was gone. "You're always welcome here, Henry," he said after a moment, and he wasn't sure when he'd crossed the room to kneel down by the boy's bed.

Henry smiled through the tears and reached over to wrap his arms around the elder man's neck. "When it doesn't hurt so much, will you tell me all about him when he was my age?"

"I'm not sure it'll ever stop, but yes, I'll tell you all about your father when he was your age."

A soft knock came at the door and Belle held up a mug of steaming tea. "It's nearly three in the morning. Why don't we all try to get just a little more sleep and we can continue this in the morning?"

Henry nodded and she set his tea down on the table by the bed. "Thanks, Belle."

She smiled and took Rumplestiltskin's hand as they left Henry to sleep. He followed her back into their bedroom and closed the door behind them. Mugs of the same herbal tea sat on top of the dresser and she reached for hers, carrying it with her to crawl into her side of the bed and sip on it. She waited until her husband joined her before turning clear, clever eyes on him. "Don't keep this from me," she said firmly.

"No, I won't. Not anymore," he agreed.

"Are we in danger?"

"I don't know yet."

"Do you know what's causing it?"

"No. I've been searching for a week and haven't found a damn thing. Henry's been checking through the whole town and it seems we're the only two people to share this dream. It might have something to do with blood magic of some sort, but I don't know."

Belle took his hand with her free one and squeezed his fingers. "Well, now you have me, and I know your library better than you do. We'll find an answer. Together."

"Together," he agreed, raising her knuckles to his lips and he pressed a kiss there. He was learning in small steps, but if he was going to trust anyone, it was Belle. Perhaps when this was all over and they'd fought whatever demon they were going to face he could work up the courage to tell her about the dagger switch as well and all the many, many reasons why. Then they could decide what they were going to do and which direction they were going to go with that. Together.

"He's hiding something from me. He's never hidden anything from me."

"Now we both know that's simple not true," Regina answered, dark eyes flickering over the edge of her coffee mug at the woman that sat with her legs curled up on her - expensive! - white couch of an office that arguably didn't belong to her anymore. She hadn't cast this curse and she thought she might deserve something of a break after the utter chaos coming back had brought with it. Not that she and Robin could really get away anywhere, of course. There was still the issue of the town line. No one had tried to cross it, but she didn't want to be the one that found out that now that she was a 'victim' of this new curse that her memories would be wiped again. Regina hated the not knowing.

"You know what I mean," Emma snapped irritably and pulled her knees up to her chin as Regina snorted. What a world they lived in now that Emma Swan was coming to her for advice on Henry. Of her own free will. "He's sneaking around like-"

"Like he did when you came to town?" the former Evil Queen asked pointedly and watched the savior's shoulders droop a little. She didn't have to utterly indulge in darkness to appreciate a little irony.

"Yeah," the blonde answered reluctantly. "He snuck out of the apartment last night."

That caught Regina's attention. "He did what? It was freezing last night. Where was he going?" A thousand different scenarios crashed through her mind all at once and she wasn't sure when she'd stood up from her seat.

"Gold's house," Emma answered in a tone that said she wasn't happy.

Regina sat back down hard. "Why?"

"That's the thing. He wouldn't tell me. He got home this morning in time to change for school and was gone again. When I asked him he wouldn't give me a straight answer. I thought maybe he'd mentioned something to you that could give me an idea why he'd do something like that…."

"He hasn't," the mayor managed, feeling a numbness seep in. Rumple had never shown any real interest in fostering a relationship with his son's son before, for all his talk of family. She hadn't expected that to change, nor had Henry spoken about going to visit his paternal grandfather when he came to visit her. "Does he spend a great deal of time with him? He hasn't said anything to me."

Emma shrugged. "He goes over to the shop sometimes. Belle thinks they're helping each other. I don't know. I know Henry's having a rough time with Neal dying and all that, but I thought he'd talk to one of us, you know."

"Well, it would probably help if you didn't replace his father quite so quickly." She knew the words were crueler than they'd been intended as soon as they'd left her lips and she took a lengthy sip from her coffee mug. Well, if Emma had wanted coddling, she should have gone to her mother for advice.

The blonde gaped at her. "I'm not replacing Neal! Has Henry said something like that?"

Regina set the mug down and leaned forward, reminding herself that she had promised to be content in sharing her son with this woman. Henry loved her and as much as she hated to admit it, he'd been happier with her here. They had to work together to keep him safe. "Not in so many words, but I can see it. Henry has always wanted family and there's little worse than finding them and then losing them again. Now suddenly Hook is around all the time, constantly flirting with little care of how it comes across-"

"Henry didn't have a problem before."

"He didn't remember before," Regina pointed out. "Now he remembers Neal and he's gone."

Emma huffed a sigh. "He's going to Gold because he's Neal's dad. I knew that was it to an extent. Belle seemed to think that they were coming together out of a mutual grief, but three in the morning? Something weird is going on, right? I'm not going crazy?"

"There's always more to Rumple than what you see on the surface."

"You know him pretty well."

"As well as anyone can." Regina didn't like it any better than Emma. She didn't trust Rumplestiltskin at the present. He'd been livid in the barn as they were taking Zelena away and an angry Rumple was a dangerous Rumple. He didn't always act right away - though Zelena had died rather suspiciously if you asked Regina, even if her former teacher had what seemed like an airtight alibi with his dagger in Belle's oh-so innocent hands - but often let it stew, setting up all the pieces just so and then stepped back to watch everything crash down around those that he saw as his enemies. If he was using Henry as a pawn in whatever he was thinking Regina would never forgive him.

"You don't think he's using him, do you?" Emma asked softly, startling the elder woman out of her thoughts on the same subject.

"I wouldn't put it past him." She sighed, standing again.

"You don't trust him."

There was no question in her voice and Regina offered a strained smile. "Not right now I don't. I know what grief does to a person, Miss Swan, and I know how easy it is to choose to do the wrong thing. Best case is that he realized that Neal isn't coming back and there's no fix for this now, so now he's holding tight to the one link he has left."

"Worst case?"

She turned, dark eyes fixed on hazel ones. "Worst case is that he's taking advantage of our son."

He'd never felt pain quite like this. It started in his chest and worked its way from there, reaching out and in all at once until it threatened to consume him. Maybe it had. He'd thought the grief of losing her the first time had been unbearable. There was no way to know if their plan would really work, but he'd had faith, and his faith had sustained him through that pain that his cursed self hadn't even known he'd been feeling. The second time he'd lost her, he told himself that she was safe and happy, and that had pushed him forward.

Now Emma was dead and David couldn't do anything to push that loss aside. Nothing could stop the ache entirely, but putting an end to her murderer was the first step to dulling it. The man had turned all their lives upside down far too often and this time he'd gone too far. This time he would pay for it. Killing a man that was considered immortal was a difficult task to be sure, but Blue had placed an enchantment on his sword that should do the trick.

He'd found him at the shop and Gold had denied it. The lies poured from him and David felt the rage building. His daughter was dead and Rumplestiltskin couldn't even find it in him to admit it in the end. They all knew. There was no escaping with the town lines to keep him trapped. It wasn't until one of Snow's arrows had downed him in the street that that old smile returned to his lips and David saw the demon that had worn the cloak of a man willing to help them from time to time. "Why?" the prince demanded, his voice breaking even on the single word. His daughter was dead and he hadn't been able to save her.

That smile stretched a little further and he saw an old madness there. "It was her fault," he answered, voice pitched up like the imp they'd all known him as back home. "Her fault. Her fault. Her fault."

David grabbed him by his expensive lapels, hauling him up. "What did Emma ever do to you?"

The giggle was cut off as David let go of him just long enough to pull his blade back and strike. He'd lost his mind when his son died, or perhaps he had lost it a long time before that and all illusions of sanity had simply been dropped. It was only a matter of time before an evil creature such as the Dark One turned on them. Blue had warned them many times of it over the years and David hadn't listened well enough. Now, as he saw dark eyes go wide in pain, he knew that he'd never be able to hurt them again. The enchantment might not have been enough in the Enchanted Forest, but here it was, and as Rumplestiltskin's knees gave beneath him David knew he was done in for. He'd killed him before he could hurt anyone else, but even his death wouldn't bring Emma home to him.

The scene faded around him and it took a moment for Prince Charming to realize he was staring at the ceiling in his own room from his own bed. Snow shifted sleepily next to him, and he heard Neal stirring in the crib. It was quiet in their full little apartment and he felt his wife touch his arm. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he answered drowsily.

"What's wrong? Did I miss Neal crying?"

"No," David answered softly, trying not to wake their sleeping son. "Just had a dream. It's nothing."

"It didn't sound like nothing," Snow pressed. "You still look a little startled. What was it about?"

He shook his head, shifting so that he could look at her better. Those worried green eyes pierced through the shadows of the room, forcing back even the worst of his fears. "I don't remember," he admitted. "It just sort of slipped away."

"They do that sometimes," she agreed and kissed him. "Let's get some more sleep before he really does wake up."

Her husband smiled and wrapped an arm around her. He couldn't remember the nightmare - in general or in detail - but it left an uncomfortable feeling deep in his chest that spoke of dangers to come. For the first time ever his family was together, whole, and safe, and he wouldn't let anything change that, not while he still lived and breathed.

TBC

Notes: Thank you all for your lovely reviews!

Next time, in Chapter Four Belle begins her research, Rumple and Henry visit Bae's grave, and Emma has a nightmare she can't quite shake.