"I told you, pirate," Rumplestiltskin says as Hook stares between them and the gun that hangs silent and inert in his hands. "If you try to harm me or mine, you will find yourself as ineffectual as you are worthless."

Belle tightens her grip on Rumplestiltskin's hand, her heart in her throat, and looks down to make sure she's still standing on the right side of the town line. As if she wouldn't have been able to tell if she'd crossed it. This close to him, she feels a shudder run down Rumplestiltskin's spine as he notes her movement, and he steps across the line to stand beside her, making his body a shield between her and the barrier.

That's twice now he's saved her from having her memories stolen. Three if you count how he ensured the curse would be broken in the first place.

Hook roars something at Rumplestiltskin. Rumplestiltskin snaps his fingers and the pirate disappears mid-word. Belle can't pretend she's sorry to see him go. The click of the gun from behind her, as she had leaned in to kiss Rumplestiltskin, had startled her so much that only Rumplestiltskin's own hands had kept her from staggering over the town line. Well, that and, most probably, the curse Rumplestiltskin laid on Hook.

"Is he—" she asks, more out of habit than real concern.

"Safe in a jail cell. If Sheriff Swan can't figure out why he's there, the more fool her."

"If you hadn't…" Belle tries to look brave rather than absolutely terrified. "I would have forgotten you."

"Shh." Rumplestiltskin turns, instantly, from sneering Dark One into the man who loves her. He folds her into his arms and squeezes her, tight as he does only when she's afraid or in danger. "It's all right, sweetheart, I'm here. I won't let him hurt you."

"I know," she says into his neck. Her cheek rests against the soft weave of his son's baby blanket, and she breathes in deeply. It smells of Rumplestiltskin, which makes her wonder how many years he's treasured it close and protected.

And he nearly lost it for her sake.

Belle can almost forget, after this eventful day, just how disappointed she felt, when he'd told her the charm would work only on the object he most cared for—and then had pulled out this shawl she'd never seen before rather than their chipped cup. But, she reminds herself, he's known her only a handful of years in comparison to the centuries he has searched for his son. She cannot begrudge him this, not when the cloth represents his own child.

"Let's go home," she whispers into his ear, and runs a hand through his hair when he shudders at her breath on his neck.

As always since she left his house, Rumplestiltskin is careful with his use of magic around her. For once, Belle doesn't think she'd mind if he just poofed them straight to his house, but she counsels herself to patience as he drives them toward town. Well, toward the library, until she takes his hand and says, "No, Rumple. Let's go home."

He smiles that tremulous smile at her, and turns for his house.

While he drives, Belle does her best to reconcile everything she's learned about him today.

He murdered his wife—the woman who abandoned him and his son for a pirate and never looked back.

He was a cripple before, as lame as he is now—this injured leg is not new to this world, not the unique punishment from the Queen she's assumed it to be.

He once had nothing, was nothing, and could not fight for either himself or his family—which may be why he overcompensates so extremely now that he does hold the power to protect those he loves.

His most treasured possession is a shawl made by his wife, another woman he loved—the woman he killed in a crime so great that even now he cannot bring himself to confess it.

And lastly, he still thinks Belle is going to turn around and leave him one day. He trusts her, but he doesn't trust in her love.

When they are parked once more, Rumplestiltskin looks at her. He is patient, but wary, as if not sure what to expect. She can hardly blame him. Sure, she didn't leave him as he beat the pirate nearly to death. She smiled and told him that she would never stop fighting for him. She helped him test the shawl and his potion and she was giddy with relief when it worked and he still knew her.

But now she also knows the name and the past of one of his victims. She knows of his humble beginnings. She watched him ready to murder a man right in front of her.

But he didn't. Just like before, in Sherwood Forest, he could have killed someone while she watched…but he didn't.

Belle reaches across the seat and straightens the shawl around his shoulders. The smile she offers is nearly as soft as his own.

"Let's go inside," she prompts.

He helps her out of the car, lets her take his elbow, fumbles with the keys he needs to unlock the front door—it reminds Belle, sharply, of that afternoon, when he pulled out the keys to his shop and she took his hand and told him he could tell her anything.

Nowhere in her thoughts, though, had she imagined him confessing the murder of his wife.

Her curiosity about this woman, Milah, is sharp, a guilty secret Belle can't imagine admitting. But still, it's there, growing with every fact she learns.

Milah, who could weave, who bore him a son, who called him a coward, who left to see the world, who chose another man over Rumplestiltskin, who became a pirate, who died without remorse for her actions, who left behind one man willing to pretend to immortality just to extract his revenge in her name and another man with scars that haven't healed even after centuries.

Belle knows Rumplestiltskin better than she knows anyone else, but he is still such a mystery to her. Even when he mentioned that the pirate stole the woman he loved, Belle had to ask to be sure that it was Bae's mother they were speaking of because she has no idea how many women Rumplestiltskin has loved through his long life. She doesn't begrudge him those other loves—she doesn't—because he deserves to be loved, but…

But it plays at the edges of her mind. The roots of her insecurity.

Their cup is not his most treasured possession. He's loved before her. His son is his happy ending.

What is there left for Belle?

These are selfish thoughts, and Belle scarcely lets the front door close before she turns into Rumplestiltskin, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing close. He pauses—he always pauses—then embraces her in return. Belle stands in the warmth of his arms for a moment, just breathing, before she pulls back.

Watching him closely, she reaches up and unwraps the shawl from around his neck. He will leave her, in the morning, and he will go to find his son, and when he returns, he will be a different man. Either jubilant and distracted, or desperate and scheming. Or, she can barely stand to think of this possibility—absolutely devastated. Whatever the outcome, he will be changed.

But tonight…tonight, he is still hers.

He doesn't even tense at her appropriating his most cherished possession, doesn't flicker an eyelash of worry at his precious shawl in her hands, and when she wraps it around her own shoulders, pulls it close at the hollow of her throat, his eyes fix on her to the exclusion of all else. For this moment, right this second, she has the whole of his attention. Not magic, not his son, not all his plots, just her…her wrapped in his son's shawl.

"Rumple," she breathes, and then she goes up on her toes and kisses him.

He kisses her back, a sweet, reassuring kiss, one that tastes of his surprise and his relief.

He is always surprised when she kisses him. She wishes he weren't. She wishes he'd kiss her first, even if just once, so that she could know for sure that he wants her as much as she wants him.

"I love you," she whispers against his lips. She thinks he means to say it back, but if so, she steals the words from his lungs when she tightens her arms around his neck and draws him in deep, deep inside her mouth. They stumble back against the stained glass, his cane dropping to the floor. Belle tastes Rumplestiltskin on her tongue, winds his hair around her fingers, smells him in the sweat on his brow, feels the shawl wrapped around her.

"Belle," he gasps, one hand braced against the door to hold them up, the other clasped tightly around her waist as she surges up into him.

She caresses his hair with her hand, winds the other through the shawl and brushes the worn ends of it down her own cheek. When Rumplestiltskin pulls back to suck in a heaving breath, she plays the shawl over his cheek too, then wraps it over her hair.

He stares. Fixated. Intent. Besotted.

Hers.

It's so incredibly selfish, this desire she has to make the shawl as much hers as it is Baelfire's, to make it more hers than Milah's, but this is Belle's last night with Rumplestiltskin as he is. Her last night before his world expands to include someone else he loves even more than her. So for one night, just for now, for so few hours, Belle will be selfish. She'll be greedy. She won't be a hero, but a woman in love—more in love than the man who loves her back.

"I love you," she says again. It was her mission, when she first woke to herself in the woods near a well, to say these words so often and so sincerely that he would never doubt them again. She's failed, but then, she hasn't given up yet.

Slowly, kiss by stroke by caress, entwined with the shawl, Belle draws Rumplestiltskin up the staircase, down the hallway, and into his bedroom. The room is cold, the window still open from when she escaped outside—no wonder he is always surprised when she kisses him—the bed unmade from that last morning she woke alone and left its warmth to seek out her True Love. Belle ignores Rumplestiltskin's embarrassed flush at this revealing peek into his chipped heart, and while he closes the window, she shrugs out of her cardigan, steps out of her shoes. She unbuttons her shirt and loses her skirt, her lips widening into a smile she can't contain when he turns from the window and drops his cane at the sight of her. But when Rumplestiltskin reaches for her, Belle dances back, hands busily working until the only thing she is left wearing is his shawl.

As Rumplestiltskin looks at her, her wrapped in this last symbol of his son—drinks her in, really, his pupils dilated, his eyes wide—she hopes he sees family. Hopes he sees a happy ending that includes her.

"Belle," he breathes. "Beautiful Belle."

Is there anything more beautiful than the sound of her name on his lips?

This time, when Rumplestiltskin reaches for her, Belle steps forward to meet him. She winds the ends of the shawl between her fingers, and she takes his hands in hers, and she supports his staggered steps to the bed. As he wrestles with his tie and his belt, his jacket and his shirt, his endless layers and fragile armor, Belle lays herself down on his bed with the shawl as her only covering, spread like wings beneath her. It cushions her, warms her, from underneath as Rumplestiltskin kneels and crawls forward to blanket her from above.

Belle isn't magical. She has no talents to entice him like Cora, cannot weave things for him to treasure like Milah, but she loves him. She loves him with every beat of her heart, every flutter of her lungs, every cell in her body. She loves him, and maybe it isn't enough for him, but it is all she has to give him and all she wants from him in return.

Twined through with his shawl, Belle pulls Rumplestiltskin down onto her, kisses him with open mouth and seeking tongue, touches him everywhere she can, softly, gently, kind touches to combat the endless years of nothingness, of only cruel blows, he has endured.

I love you, she thinks with every thought, layers into every touch, breathes into every kiss.

"My darling Belle," he gasps, and when he kisses her, she imagines a curse breaking. She imagines a Dark One vanishing, defeated by the love shared equally between them.

She keeps her eyes open, memorizing every look on Rumplestiltskin's face, every instant of this single night, and she does not think of the morning. Instead, she thinks of a future. She thinks of an ending that is a beginning, and a family that she can be a part of and a son that will not take her place in Rumplestiltskin's heart.

It's selfish, but in some ways, she thinks, all love is selfish, and maybe she will regret it when he is gone, when he once more bows before her to let her give him this shawl back and send him on his way, but maybe she won't. Maybe this will be the best night of her entire life.

Maybe this is all she will ever have.

He kisses down her body, his mouth layering magic of a kind only he can cast over her, and Belle's eyes flutter closed. She doesn't want that, though, and with a murmur of his name, she draws him back up to her and into her, her eyes locked with his, her body welcoming him in every way she knows how.

Mine, she thinks, and longs for it to be true.

He gasps and presses closer, closer, with not even a hint that he wants any space between them, and Belle's heart is a beacon of hope and possessiveness inside her chest. She wonders if he can see it. If it glows out of her eyes as surely as his heart shines in his.

"I love you," he stutters when their breaths are heavy and gasping and their hearts beat furiously in tandem. He doesn't lie—that's not what Rumplestiltskin does—but it's not the whole truth either.

He loves her, but not enough.

Belle shares True Love's Kiss with Rumplestiltskin a dozen times, a hundred, over and over again, and prays that her own curse will break as surely as his.

But when his hand twines with hers, bits of the shawl tangled up between, Belle smiles and draws her other hand down his dear, dear face, and she does not let go.

She is still as selfish with him as ever.


"Rumple!" Belle exclaims into the phone. Rumplestiltskin has given her more gifts than she can name, but she thinks this phone is her favorite. In her cell, she would have given anything, even her life, just for the chance to press a few buttons and be able to speak to her True Love from anywhere in the world.

And he's so far away right now. It's his quest, his journey, and Belle has devoured enough books to know just how important those are, but she is so happy that he's called her.

"Rumple," she says again, and smiles.

The smile dies a quick death when Emma's voice issues through the phone.

"Gold's been stabbed. It looks like…like a mugging, I guess. They took the shawl and he's hurt pretty bad. But…" Emma's voice wavers.

Belle doesn't pretend to know the town's sheriff very well, or really, more than in passing, but she can all too well imagine that startled, uncomprehending look Emma wears so often and so well.

"The shawl," Belle hears herself say.

"Yes. It was stolen. I don't… His memories are kind of all over the place."

"You have to get it back!" Belle exclaims. "That's his talisman! It's what keeps his whole self intact."

"If we get him back to Storybrooke—"

"That might not fix anything." Closing her eyes, Belle counsels herself to patience. To calmness. She needs to think, not just react. "Tom Clark came back over the line, but he still doesn't remember being Sneezy. If Rumple comes back into town…I don't know if that will be enough. He needs that shawl."

More than that, Belle thinks, he'll want it. It's his most cherished possession. It's all he had to cling to in the long centuries of searching for his son.

It's the talisman she wove herself through for hours the night before he left. Was that really just last night? It feels like it's been ages since she's seen him.

"Belle," Emma says, "he's asking for you."

Her heart leaps: he remembers her!

"Let me talk to him. Please." The plea slips out unprompted, and Belle bites her lip in an effort to compose herself.

He needs her. Rumplestiltskin so rarely needs anyone, and Belle cherishes the idea that perhaps she is one of the few he can trust to be dependent on. He is how she is a hero. Because he sees her as a hero. Because he gives her the opportunities. And because he hasn't, even once, seemed to doubt that she is good.

"Belle?"

The sound of her name on his lips—her favorite sound in all the worlds—is different. Or rather, his voice is. It's tentative. Shy, even. As if he thinks she might only be a dream he's conjured up during endless lonely nights.

"Rumple," she says, and smiles through her tears, licks the saltwater away, and tries to be as strong and as brave as he thinks she is. "Are you okay?"

"Belle," he nearly sobs, "they took Bae's shawl. They took my son."

"No, no," she soothes. Cradling the phone in both hands, she presses it closer to her ear and slides to the floor, her back against the elevator where Rumplestiltskin had hugged her so tightly and draped his coat over her shoulders. When she closes her eyes, Belle imagines she can see Rumplestiltskin, curled in on himself, bleeding—how badly is he hurt? She wishes Emma had said—afraid and trying not to be and hating himself for being afraid anyway. Her dear, dear Rumple. "Nobody took your son. You're going to find him. You're going to be reunited with him, and you'll tell him how much you love him, and that you're sorry you've been parted for so long."

"Belle." Her name again, keened, intoned, like a spell he tries to layer magic through. "What if he hates me?"

"He won't," she assures him. Maybe she's lying, maybe it's a kind trick, but what is she supposed to say? She doesn't know his son, this Baelfire he speaks of in hushed, reverent whispers, but she knows Rumplestiltskin. He isn't as difficult to love as he thinks he is. "He's your son, Rumple. He'll be full of love, just like you."

"He might not—" Rumplestiltskin cuts himself off.

Belle frowns. "Rumple?"

"Belle," he breathes, so disbelieving and shocked that her brow creases. "I thought you were dead."


"It's a trick," declares this man who looks like the spinner Baelfire once called Papa, sounds like a businessman from this world of no magic, and can snap like the Dark One that has haunted Neal's nightmares. He tosses the phone aside, and Emma lets out a curse as she snatches it up before it can bounce to the floor.

Neal shakes himself free of his astonishment—for the tenth time—and once more pushes Rumplestiltskin back down onto his couch. His whole side and shoulder, his arms, his heart, tingle like a limb reawakening from numb sleep: everywhere that touched his papa while Neal carried him from the street up to his apartment. Rumplestiltskin sags down into the cushions that never looked so enveloping before, one of his hands pressed tight over the blue scarf Neal unwound from his own neck to press against the stab wound.

"Don't move," he tells this stranger, and he turns to his tiny kitchen area to rummage for hot water and rags he can use as bandages. It's been a long time since he's been on the streets, fixing himself up in any way he could; or in Neverland, trying not to betray weakness and show how badly the latest games had hurt him; and even longer since he's nursed his papa's 'accidental' wounds when returning from the market. But still, Neal's hands move out of instinct.

His papa is bleeding out on his couch.

The Dark One is bleeding out on his couch.

The…the Beast is bleeding out on his couch.

Yeah, the fairytale thing is going to take a while to get used to, no matter how many times August has tried to explain it. No matter how soft his papa's voice turned while speaking to the woman on the phone.

When Neal finally turns with a bucket of clean water, some rags, and the antiseptic Tamara bought for him once, he finds Rumplestiltskin once more trying to clamber to his feet. Without his cane, though, he can't even climb off the couch, let alone anywhere else.

"Easy, easy," Neal says, his tone sharper than is probably appropriate. The boy that came with Rumplestiltskin and Emma stands in a corner, his hands wrapped tight around Mr. Gold's cane. He stares at Gold with wide eyes, his face so pale that it reminds Neal of the other boys he's seen with that shellshocked look. Lost Boys, lonely and trapped with no way out.

"Hey," he says to the boy as kindly as he knows how. "It'll be okay. You did a great job looking out for him, you know that, right?"

The boy gives him a wobbly smile that looks almost familiar, and Neal turns back to…well, to the man on his couch.

It's his papa. It looks just like him, the face with worn lines, though cleaner now, and the honey-brown eyes that can darken with grief and worry or turn nearly gold with joy at Bae's accomplishments.

But Bae's been dead a long time, and for Neal, those same eyes are narrowed, distrustful, and then, as he blinks and wavers, his hand to his forehead, suddenly wary, but…hopeful.

"Please," he says as Neal gears himself up to touch this man again. "Please, do you know where my son is?"

Neal bites his tongue and focuses on pulling aside Mr. Gold's suit coat. It's expensive, tailored to his form, and it takes a bit to pry it off with Rumplestiltskin's reluctant help. Beneath, he's wearing a vest, and a tie, and a shirt, and…for crying out loud, how did the knife even reach past all these layers to hit skin?

"I…I don't have anything to give you for your help," Rumplestiltskin says, his eyes averted, his hands shaking in his lap. "I…can spin."

"It's fine," Neal says shortly. "Just…don't move, okay?"

"I have to find Bae."

Neal flinches. The name brings up so many things he's worked incredibly hard to bury. It's what his papa used to call him, sure, but it's also what Pan would call him, sometimes, when he was at his kindest, his softest…his most manipulative. His games always hurt the worst when he was Bae rather than Baelfire.

"Just…don't worry," he says.

The wound is still bleeding. It's half the length of Neal's palm, but it doesn't look enflamed or raw. He'll need stitches, but hopefully there was no poison. Or is that just what Neal wants to think?

He's done everything he can to avoid attention, since he left Emma, since he came back here from Canada, and dragging a man with a stab wound into the emergency room of Manhattan's busy hospital is going to do nothing but draw attention. He'll have to stay. He'll have to explain what happened. He'll have to tell Tamara, and then she'll be here and she'll ask questions and he'll have to answer and then she'll be part of all this—all the magic and the weirdness and Baelfire. That can't happen. He needs her to be normal.

"I can take care of this," he assures both himself and Rumplestiltskin.

"No, no, don't worry about me." Rumplestiltskin tries to push his hands away. "Please, just help me find my son. He's a good boy. He'll be around somewhere, maybe watching the sheep. Just find him for me and I'll be okay. I'll pay you back—"

"Papa," Bae says.

The word, the name, escapes him, like a ghost speaking through him. A boy buried on Neverland's shores slipping out into this world like a shadow on the prowl, ready to destroy Neal Cassidy and everything he's worked to become.

Rumplestiltskin stares up at him. His eyes are so wide, nearly as wide as when he was on the phone with Belle. He looks scared and broken and vulnerable—nothing at all like the monster Neal has convinced himself his papa is. He looks…so utterly familiar.

"Papa," Neal says again, giving into the inevitable. To fate. To whatever screwed up mess destiny has waiting for him. He should have known he'd never be able to escape. "It's me. I'm Baelfire. I'm your son."


Your wife will bear you a son, the seer told him. Rumplestiltskin remembers her saying it. He can all but hear the childish voice lilting out the greatest news of his entire life.

A son. A son who would love him even if he didn't deserve it, who would believe in him even when no one else did, who would never abandon him. A son he could love and cherish and hold close and protect.

Rumplestiltskin did the unthinkable to get back to his son, he let Milah do whatever she wanted so he could take care of his boy, he endures and survives because his son needs him, and…and now…

A crease forms between Rumplestiltskin's brows.

Where is his son? Where is his beautiful Baelfire?

The man kneeling at his side, holding bandages in his hand, staring up at him with dark eyes, doesn't look familiar. He doesn't look like anyone Rumplestiltskin knows.

But still, Rumplestiltskin hears the seer promise him everything he ever wanted.

"Bae?" he breathes.

The stranger flinches, but then, slowly, he nods. "Yeah," he says, as if he's defeated. "That's me."

"Bae."

Rumplestiltskin would never leave his son. He would never abandon him or choose another world and the ability to fly over him. But still, he feels as if he's been parted from his Baelfire for years, for centuries. When he lifts a hand, blood-stained and scarred, to ghost over the man's features, he nearly sobs as if this is a reunion of years.

"Bae," he breathes, and the man endures his touch for only a moment more before pulling back.

"Yeah, it's Neal now, but… Listen, I'm going to have to stitch up your wound, okay? Just sit still."

There's pain. So much pain. But Rumplestiltskin is used to that. He endures it, his eyes locked on this man.

It's strange. A moment ago, he'd forgotten, but…but he's been looking for his son for lifetimes. And now here he is. His boy.

"Bae, I'm sorry," he says. "I'm so sorry."

The man says nothing, all his attention focused on the tearing pain in Rumplestiltskin's chest.

How could he have ever forgotten? He let his son go. Bae must hate him. Must blame him. Must feel for him the same things Rumplestiltskin feels toward Malcolm.

Dropping his eyes, Rumplestiltskin tries to catch hold of the words he's been saving up. The apology he's been rehearsing.

"You've always been the bigger man," he says. The words taste familiar on his lips. Too familiar. He's said them already, gave them away to the puppet instead of saving them for his son.

Not that Bae could ever forgive him. Rumplestiltskin's always known that was a long shot. An impossible dream that he let Belle hold onto for him.

Belle.

Where is she? She should be around here, shouldn't she? There's a pain in his chest—where the thief shot him?—but she's not here to run toward him, that look of worry on her face. He shouldn't have shouted at her. He should never have sent her away, or, no, he shouldn't have let her come back. No one can ever, ever love him.

Not even his boy. His own son.

"Bae, I've spent a lifetime trying to find you," he says. "All to tell you that I'm sorry, and I love you."

The man's hands stutter and fall still. He's holding a needle and thread and there are bloody rags on the floor and Rumplestiltskin can't clear his thoughts or find the magic he's reaching for.

Where is Belle? He needs her for this. She'll help him. She knows how to make it seem like he's a better man than he really is.

Like more than the beggar life wants him to become.

"Wood burns," he tells this stranger. "If I hold that dagger, I can save you, Bae. I can save all the children of the Frontlands."

"It's not worth it," the man mutters, and he goes back to pricking teardrops of agony in Rumplestiltskin's flesh.

This man. Floofy hair, creased brow, a dimple hinted at in his left cheek, and eyes so dark they should be brown but are actually blue. Like Bae's. Bae's eyes, so dark that Rumplestiltskin would lie and tell himself they were like his, but he knew. He knew all along they were blue like Milah's. Blue like whoever his father really was.

"Oh, Bae," he breathes. He's not sure why. It's a stranger in front of him, not his son. But then, this name has been his talisman for all his immortal life. It's the only thing he has to cling to besides a chipped cup.

Chipped cup? Why would he care about that? Just a cup, when in front of him, this man kneels.

This man. Rumplestiltskin lifts his eyes and devours every feature. He's not quite sure why. Not entirely certain why he feels the need to engrave every detail of this stranger into his mind, his heart, his memory, but he knows it's important.

"I'm not scared of anything," he says as he reaches for the power that is his now. He can't find it, but he knows it's there. It's layered through the dagger that bears his name.

"Stop moving!" the man snaps, and Rumplestiltskin cowers back.

He has to find his son. If only…if only he could find Bae…if only Belle were here, she'd help him. She'd know what to do.

"Bae," he breathes. "I'm sorry. I love you. It's all for you. All for my boy."

But just like before, in a dark wood with the smell of soot and smoke, the darkness claims him.


"It was a mugger!" Emma says for the tenth time and has to make a concentrated effort not to crush the phone in her grip. "A thief, okay? Whoever it is came out of nowhere and attacked Gold and Henry. I didn't see them. I have no idea where they went. The shawl could be anywhere—it's not even valuable so for all I know, they dropped it in a dumpster."

"You have to find it," Belle says again. Her tone is frayed at the edges.

Emma takes a deep breath. She doesn't know Belle well. Actually, aside from their introduction in Gold's shop, when Emma was accusing Belle's date of murder and then accepting a magic lesson from him, she hasn't really ever spoken to her. It was hard enough seeing the meek Mary Margaret firing arrows at an ogre and the slightly bumbling amnesiac patient suddenly turned into a sword-wielding, gun-toting deputy trying to be her dad while also answering to the name of Charming—finding a beautiful woman who likes books, owns a library, and fancies herself in love with Gold was just too much.

The fairy tale thing is impossible to get used to.

"He seemed to know you," Emma says with a hint of desperation. "Maybe if you just keep talking to him, you'll bring him back to himself."

What is she saying? That's ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. If it doesn't make sense in Storybrooke, it definitely doesn't make sense out here in the real world.

"Emma, if just True Love would work, don't you think Rumple would have left Storybrooke ages ago? It took him weeks to invent a potion that would allow him to keep his memories, and the potion only works when it's infused into the object he cherishes most."

"Some weird scarf?"

"It was his son's baby blanket," Belle says patiently.

Emma's eyes dart to the living room. There's not a whole lot of space in this shoebox apartment; the bedroom was as far as Emma could get from the sight of Neal—Neal standing only feet away from the son he doesn't know he has, not nearly distant enough.

Neal Cassidy, the liar, also known as Baelfire, the son of Rumplestiltskin. And that ugly shawl Rumplestiltskin nearly killed a man to keep around his throat in the airport was once Neal's baby blanket. Against her will, Emma thinks of one of the only sentimental items she herself keeps—the white baby blanket with her name embroidered in purple silk. A much prettier, more luxurious version of the same thing that worn and yellowed shawl apparently is.

Grimacing, Emma shakes the comparison aside and turns her back once more to Neal. Belatedly, she realizes Belle's still talking. What catches her attention is the way Belle's tone turns from certain to…almost embarrassed.

"We…I did do something with the shawl before he left. Just…I…" Belle's swallow is audible even through the phone. "I wanted it to remind him of me too, so…there may be a reason that I help ground him. Maybe when I paired the shawl with me, I also…maybe some of the potion rubbed off on me?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Emma says bluntly, "but that really doesn't matter. None of this magic stuff makes any sense. Look, you say I have to find this shawl? That's what I'm here for, really, right? Gold only brought me because I find things, so that's what I'll do. I'll find the shawl."

"Thank you," Belle says so earnestly Emma feels preemptively guilty. "Please, Emma, take care of him."

"His son's doing that," she says.

Belle's breath catches in her throat. "What? You found him?"

Silence for a beat before Emma admits, "Yeah. He's with Gold now."

"Could you…" Belle hesitates a long moment. "Never mind. It'll keep. Just…please bring Rumplestiltskin back to me."

Emma reaches for a lie but can't quite do it. All she manages is a short, "Bye," and then she hangs up the phone and throws it toward the pile of Gold's clothes at the end of the couch.

"We have to find the shawl he was wearing," she announces to the room at large. "It's the only thing allowing him to keep his memories outside of Storybrooke."

Neal looks up at her, a dozen questions in his eyes, his mouth already open. Emma can't stand to hear any of them—not after seeing how tenderly he's working on his father's wounds.

He said he hated his father. He said his father didn't care about him.

More lies.

With sharp, jerky motions she tries to smooth out for the kid's sake, Emma turns to Henry, not incidentally setting herself between him and Neal, and says, "Hey, kid, I'm sorry this has happened, but we're going to figure this out, okay?" When Henry nods, she smiles at him. It's probably the poorest excuse for a smile she's ever given, but hey, she's still new to this parenting thing. "Okay, I don't suppose you saw anything, did you? Any details about the mugger at all?"

"It was a girl," Henry says. He tears his eyes from Mr. Gold to look at her. "I think. She was wearing a black coat and a green scarf that she'd lifted to cover her face. She didn't look poor, though. And she didn't care about me. After she shoved me out of the way, she grabbed Mr. Gold and dragged him into the alley. I think she told him something, but then when he fell and I yelled at her, she grabbed his scarf and ran away. I didn't see where she went."

The kid's a star witness. Emma thinks she should be used to his acuity by now, but it still takes her aback. She's so proud of him, and she hopes he knows that.

"Okay, good job, kid." She's not sure why she keeps avoiding his name. It's not like it's the name she would have picked for him—she had a different name in mind entirely before she woke up and realized she couldn't be a mother—and there's nothing about it to clue Neal in. But still…she doesn't want Neal to have anything of Henry, not even his name.

"Are you going to look for her now?" Henry asks. "I could come with you."

"First, we're going to go comb the alleyway." Emma shrugs and straightens. "If the mugger wanted money, the shawl was the least valuable thing to grab off of Gold. She might have dropped it somewhere close by."

The apartment's tiny enough that Emma figures just saying anything out loud is as good as informing everybody, so with a hand around Henry's shoulder to keep herself between him and Neal, she hustles them out of the apartment.

"He'll be okay, won't he?" Henry asks worriedly as they head for the ground floor.

"Sure," Emma says with another pathetic smile. As soon as they're outside, she busies Henry with looking for clues even though she doubts they'll find anything. She just doesn't want Henry to look too closely at her—the kid's scarily good at reading her and guessing the things she most wants hidden.

Like the fact that Gold's son is his dad.

Like the fact that Emma's barely holding herself together.

Or like the fact that Emma's not sure they should even try to find the shawl at all. Or give it back to Gold if they do find it.

After all, wouldn't everyone be a whole lot safer—and a whole lot happier—if Gold were gone for good?