August isn't doing well. Try as he might to tell himself he doesn't (shouldn't) care, Neal can't help but worry when the guy stops talking entirely. He's made of wood and hinges and some kind of marbles for his eyes, so it seems weird that he can look so disconsolate, so depressed, but he manages somehow.
Magic may be keeping him alive, but (as Neal's always known) it's not enough all on its own.
"What can I do?" he finally asks. He's tried to give the guy tea, coffee, any type of food, but August doesn't seem to even recognize any of it anymore.
He doesn't answer either. Instead, he just sits there on the excuse of a couch this trailer offers, his eyes fixed out the window, though Neal can't be sure he's seeing anything.
"Is this a magic thing?" he asks reluctantly. "Is there not enough of it? Are you…like, starving of the magic you need? Or is this…something else?"
August's hand is in his pocket. Frustrated, Neal reaches over and tries to yank him around. All he succeeds in doing it jerking his hand out of his pocket. Something small plinks against the floor, and August finally reacts, stumbling up and shoving Neal back. A noise emerges from his throat, but it isn't anything intelligible. It's just a wordless keening as August tries to kneel but doesn't quite make it, his arms outstretched toward whatever came from his pocket.
A sharp twist of pity surges behind Neal's breastbone. If they were in Neverland, if Pan were watching this, he'd be encouraged to laugh and mock and tease. August would never be allowed to forget this moment and its accompanying humiliation.
But Neal's not in Neverland anymore (and never will be again, he's vowed).
So instead, he kneels for August, closes his flesh-and-blood fingers around the tiny carved donkey, and then helps August stand upright. Carefully, he places the donkey into August's hand and folds his hinged fingers around it.
"Okay?" he says.
August nods. "It's the first thing Papa taught me to make," he says, his voice raspy and stuttering.
And then he sits down and stares out the window just like before.
"So," Neal says (more to himself than the wooden sentinel before him). "It's something else."
What a strange pair they make, he can't help but think. August, who'd do anything to be with his father but doesn't think he's worthy of it. And Neal, who'd do almost anything to avoid ever having to see his father again and all because he knows what's left of his father isn't worth his time.
"You know," he says, "this really sucks. You're making it awfully hard to be as mad at you as you deserve."
August's shoulders tighten, but he stays silent, and for everything Neal's been forced to do and become in his life, he's never been a bully.
"I'm headed to town," he says. "You need anything?"
(He knows the answer already: Geppetto. But that's something Neal can't give him.)
Neal stops at the diner for a coffee and bagel, and is able to offer a friendly smile to Ruby when she recognizes him. She asks him how he's doing, Neal gives an evasive answer about still finding his bearings, but then, luckily, she's called to a table of seven short men Neal's really trying hard not to think of as dwarfs, and he slips back out into the street.
Unfortunately, Belle's little bookstore isn't open. Neal frowns at the locked door for a few moments before he shrugs and heads back the way he came, wrapping his scarf a bit more tightly around his throat. He hopes she's okay. Maybe she and her husband are talking things out with her father. More likely, she's overwhelmed by all the changes that have hit this town in the past few days.
It's not like Neal can blame her. He remembers how hard it was trying to adjust to this world way back in the day. None of the boggling technology, but all of the alienness, the strange customs, foreign culture, uncaring people too busy with their own lives to notice the person drowning in front of them.
(But Neal found the Darlings. He hopes Belle's husband is as good to her as Wendy was to him.)
Neal meanders through the streets without much thought. Things seem more settled today. There are less panicked, frightened people on the streets, more businesses open, fewer nascent mobs crowded out and about. In fact, Storybrooke almost looks…normal (which is weird all on its own).
The sight of the police station doesn't even register until the door opens and a kid comes tearing out into the open. If he's not crying, he's close to it, and Neal freezes for a moment, not sure if he should try to help or stay out of it.
The choice is made for him when Emma bursts out after the kid.
"Henry!" she calls. "Wait up!"
"I can't!" the kid cries. But he does, slowing to a stop so Emma can reach him.
His heart in his throat, his feet nailed to the concrete, Neal stares at the tableau laid out before him: a lost boy, a desperate situation…and Emma finding him. Trying to help him. Reaching out.
(Like Wendy did for him. Like Neal tried to do for Emma before his past came rearing up between them.)
"Don't make me see her again, please!" Henry pleads with Emma. "She's not my mom, not really, and she only wants to hurt you!"
"I'm not going to let that happen," Emma says sternly. The badge suits her well, Neal can't help but think (can't help but compare the sight of her now, strong and competent and helping people, to the orphan he loved, who said she loved him and needed him but clearly didn't). "Look, kid, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do, but…I don't think Regina wants to hurt you. I think she wants to love you, but maybe she doesn't know how without the curse."
"You said she tried to hurt Mrs. Gold!"
"Yeah, she did," Emma looks reluctant before she bends down and sets her hands on the boy's shoulders. "She's not perfect, and maybe she's only going to disappoint you. But she does love you, okay? I just…I want you to know that you are loved."
The boy softens. "I know," he says. "And it's okay, I guess. I have Gramps and Grandma now too. And I know you love me."
Neal blinks, and then blinks again when Emma's face undergoes a transformation that used to (that still might be) his favorite. A softening, a warming, a slow melting as her walls come down, her guard disappears, and the true soul at the heart of her is revealed. (It's the look she used to give him back when he always made sure to give her first pick of their haul. It's the look she wore when she kissed him for the first time, startling him and making them both laugh before he gathered his bravery enough to kiss her back. It's the look she wore when she told him she loved him and offered to risk herself to get him out of trouble.)
"I do," she tells the kid. "I do love you, Henry. More than anything."
"I love you too, Mom," Henry says, and throws his arms around her.
The world spins around him. Blindly, Neal stumbles backward, around a corner, until he finds a wall to prop him up as he puts his hands on his knees and tries to breathe.
Emma has a kid. A son.
Emma's a mom. (Emma has a family all her own, and has had one for what looks to be ten or eleven years, and why did he have to give her up if she could make her own family?)
Emma's a mother, and that kid…that kid is no older than the Lost Boys, certainly not younger than John was. Ten years, eleven…and Neal gave up everything he ever wanted almost twelve years ago exactly. Nine months, give or take, between, and that means…
No.
No, it doesn't.
Neal would never let go of his son. He'd never choose something over his own child! If he was a father, he'd…he'd hold on. He'd make the right choice.
(He's not Rumplestiltskin. He's not!)
Maybe Emma found someone else. In a women's prison. Locked up for eleven months. Left alone and blamed for a crime she didn't commit.
Neal can't breathe. He can't think.
He gave her up so she could have a family. So she could have everything she ever wanted. (So he didn't have to wake up from endless nightmares where his father found him and pulled him close with taloned hands, that once-beloved face scaled over into something unrecognizable as he slaughtered anything and everything that might hurt his precious, untouchable son.)
But all along, they could have been a family.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Neal tries to remember the sight of Emma with that couple the day before. Snow White and Prince Charming. They love her, he could tell, wanting to reach out but not wanting to frighten her away. She has her parents, and a place to belong, and she's good here—and she has a kid.
And—maybe—another guy who didn't leave her behind (who didn't let go of her hand).
Neal should never have come here. When that bird dropped off that postcard, he should have thrown it out into the rain after his phone, slammed the window shut, and never given one more thought to magic, to Emma (to Baelfire). He should have called that woman who'd given him her number in exchange for his scarf and seen where that story could have led.
But he didn't. And now he's here. And there's a kid with his dark, tousled hair and Emma's chin, and Emma who deserved so much more than he was ever able to give her, and…and now there's no going back.
Rumplestiltskin or no Rumplestiltskin, Neal doesn't get to hide in the background and pretend he's not trying to make up his mind (pretend he's not being a coward) anymore. He's here to stay now (because he won't abandon his son).
Straightening up, Neal takes in a full breath, his eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched. Then, without giving himself time to think better of it, he turns away from Storybrooke and heads back into the woods.
One way or another, August has a lot of explaining to do.
Eventually, his ankle gives out. Rumplestiltskin keeps one arm locked around Belle's waist while with the other, he leans heavily on his cane until he can lower them safely to the couch. Rather than curling up into her usual spot along the arm, though, Belle sits up straight only long enough to let Rumplestiltskin settle himself, and then she crawls into his lap and buries her face in his neck.
Fear is such a familiar feeling that it takes a while for Rumplestiltskin to realize there is more of it than usual, trickling like freezing rain down his spine.
"Belle," he whispers, and then (in case it's what she needs to hear), lower (in case it will only give her the wrong impression), "Isabel. It's all right. I'm here. You're safe. I won't let anyone else hurt you."
She shudders against him, presses impossibly closer, and heedless of the price, Rumplestiltskin snaps his fingers to make a teaset appear on the table between her couch and his chair.
"Let me make you a cup of tea," he says almost desperately. "Please."
Isabel is kind and compassionate and willing to sacrifice much for the greater good. Belle is brave and determined and able to see beyond the masks he puts up. This trembling, weeping woman in his arms is, somehow, between the two and he is terrified that he will let her down. (That Maurice and Regina—and him—have managed to break her already.)
"Oh, Rumple," Belle murmurs, and to his surprise, when she pulls back to look at him, there aren't tears streaking her face or reddening her eyes. In fact, she doesn't look scared (or broken) at all.
She looks sad.
In some ways, that hurts even worse.
"Lemon and sugar?" he asks as he detaches himself from her to make up their cups of tea. At Belle's confused frown, he adds, "I know that's how Isabel liked it. Does Belle—"
Her face softens. Her eyes shine so brightly he wonders that the lamp doesn't just shut itself off in defeat. "Yes," she says. "I like all the same things."
If there is a double-meaning in that assertion, Rumplestiltskin is too afraid of disappointment to read into it. He makes her tea, pours his own with a less steady hand, and then, when he hesitates, follows her beckoning gesture to sit beside her again. Instantly, she nestles close, the warmth of her plastered all against his side, so much more comforting than the simple heat of the chipped cup he cradles in his hands.
"I'm sorry," he blurts out. He shouldn't. The darkness tells him that he's only putting himself at a disadvantage, that she will use this weakness against him—that this is her fault. She fled his protection, she left him behind, she broke her promise, and it is not his fault that she came to harm because of it. But Rumplestiltskin has spent almost three decades free of that dark whisper, and with Belle looking at him with her clear (open, guileless, unjudgmental) eyes, he can push it down to the shadows of his mind. "Belle, I'm so sorry. I…I shouldn't have shouted at you. I should have known you were—"
Her hand, warmed from her own tea, cradles the sharp angles of his face, and Rumplestiltskin's voice dies in his throat.
"You saved me," she says again.
"But you wouldn't have been in danger at all if it weren't for me," he says bitterly, unable to meet her gaze (equally unable to pull away and risk her hand falling from his cheek).
"Rumple," she says (and her hand does move, but only to card back through his hair). "I'm going to ask you something, and I don't want you to take it the wrong way. I just want to know."
The emptiness in his stomach grows wider.
"Did you make me your wife in this world? Or was it Regina?"
His brow creases. She warned him not to take this question the wrong way, but he's not sure what that wrong way is. He's not sure how to interpret the question at all. "I…I made a deal with her for a good life in this land. She interpreted the specifics of it in her own way."
"So. Money. This house. The real estate property. And me."
Despite his best intentions, Rumplestiltskin's hand flies up to curl, so carefully, around her wrist, desperate to keep her fingers in his hair and along the contours of his face. "Belle…"
"So…when you woke up…you didn't know who I was. Or what I was doing here, in your home, with you. You…you couldn't be sure I wasn't working with Regina."
"She doesn't have your heart," he says quickly. "I checked that. You aren't her puppet."
"Isabel Gold wasn't either," Belle says with a firmness that has him tensing to keep from plastering himself against her strength and her warmth. "I know the story she wrote for us here, but…Rumple, it's the same choice I would have made in our world. If my father had let me call on you for aid against the ogres, I would have gone with you willingly in exchange for the protection of my people."
"You're so brave," he whispers, and he lets his hand slip from hers (he doesn't deserve to touch her).
"No," Belle says. This time, when she looks away, she drops her hand to her lap and clasps it with the other. "I'm not brave. I'm a fool."
In his sudden, vehement denial, Rumplestiltskin finds the courage to reach out of his own accord. Gathering Belle's hands in his, he pulls them up against his chest. Lies are so blunt, so unsubtle, and half-truths, evasions, implications, are his true skillset, but now, peering directly into Belle's eyes, he hopes, he prays, that she can see the sincerity lying heavily over him.
"You're not a fool," he tells her. "You're smart, and more than that, you're clever, but best of all, more than anyone else I've ever met…you're wise, Belle. You know how to look beyond the exterior and see what truths lie behind it. You…you're…you're kind. And you—"
Belle kisses his cheek. Then his chin. Then the corner of his lips. And Rumplestiltskin may not be a man, but he is still weak, and so he moves into her next kiss and catches her mouth with his own. (If it is to be their final kiss, he wants it to be one well worth the remembering.)
"I have to tell you something," Belle says, her voice somewhat ragged, her mouth so close to his he can feel the catch of her lips against his on certain words. "It's…it's the reason I said all those things at lunch. I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry, but I was afraid—" She bites her lip, then nods with extra firmness and says, "Yes. I have to stop pretending. I was afraid. And I lashed out at you because of it, and I'm sorry, Rumple, I'm so sorry—"
"Shh." Her skin is soft as a rose's petals under his fingertips, and her hair skims between his knuckles like the finest of silks. "You only told the truth. You—"
"No!" Belle frames his face in her hands and forces him to look at her. "You say that I can see past the mask, but that's not always true. Sometimes I fool myself into thinking there's more there than there actually is. And when that happens, it doesn't turn out well for me."
Shame is a familiar taste, metallic on his tongue. If only she weren't holding onto him (if only he could be sure this isn't the last time she means to touch him), he could pull away and hide the depths of his cowardice, his monstrousness, from her. But she is touching him (and he can't be sure it isn't the last time), so he is trapped in place, watching the sorrow grow in her beautiful eyes.
"In our old world," she says, "when the ogres came, I wanted to call for you. I believed that my father would set aside his pride and his fear to do what was best for our people. But he didn't, and because of that, we had to go on the run. I got separated from them during the retreat, and I hid in a cave too small for the ogres to enter. There was just enough there for me to survive, but it was so dark. Always, day or night, it was shadowed, only the duskiest light occasionally filtering through."
"That's why you like to sleep with the light," he realizes. There is a dizzying feeling of relief (it's not him she's afraid of at night, just the dark).
"Yes." Belle's hands slide from his face to his shoulders to his chest, and tentatively, he moves his arm to curl it around her shoulders. She falls into him and burrows closer. "Eventually, the ogres moved on, just when I thought I'd go mad, and I was able to leave that cave. Instead of tracking down my father right away to be married off, I thought I could have a few adventures of my own first. Or at least…that's what I told myself. But really, I think I was just so tired of being afraid. I wanted to prove to myself that I could be as brave as the heroes I was always reading about. Cowering alone in the dark…that's hardly an adventure worth retelling."
"You survived," he tells her. "Sometimes, that's the bravest thing you can do. To endure. To continue. To keep fighting."
She pets her hand over his tie and makes a tiny sniffling sound. "You think I'm so much more than I really am. The truth is I was just a scared little girl playing make-believe. I stayed at a tavern and met a dwarf who had fallen in love. And after helping him, I thought I could actually do more than just be the noblewoman I was expected to be. So I joined a team trying to track down a yaoguai who turned out to be a prince cursed to a beastly disguise, and I met a warrior who was actually a woman, one of the most skilled soldiers from her land."
"You got your adventures," he says softly. The repetitive movement of her hand over his chest, the way her breathing keeps stirring her hair against his cheek, has lulled him into a soft, strange restfulness. Whatever this bout of storytelling is leading to, he knows it cannot be good, but for now, for just these few moments, Rumplestiltskin lets himself ignore his own insecurities in favor of drinking in every word (every beautiful facet of herself she chooses to reveal to him).
"Yes, but…they were hard, Rumple. I was…I was lonely, and cold, and hungry, and I missed my father, and…"
Rumplestiltskin closes his eyes and tries not to think of Bae (alone and cold and hungry and maybe, hopefully, even just a little, missing his father).
"So I went to Snow and David and asked to join their household. And for a while, I was almost happy. Papa couldn't come join me, but I got a few letters here and there, and Snow and David were kind whenever I saw them, but…"
"But you were still alone?" he asks. He can hardly believe it. Belle is vibrant and gorgeous and more intriguing than a hundred other noblewomen all put together (he's dealt with enough to know), and the idea that she was just as lonely as Isabel is anathema to him.
"Yes," she whispers, and slides her hand from his tie to his hand, weaving their fingers together. Rumplestiltskin squeezes her palm warmly (she should not feel alone, not ever, certainly not when he is right here). "I was lonely, and I felt out of place, and I thought since my last adventures had turned out so well, then surely I couldn't help but succeed again. And I guess that was a terrible combination, because when Snow told me that they were planning to execute Regina, I thought there had to be a good woman behind the evil. I thought…I thought I could find it. I could pull it out so everyone could see it, like I had with the yaoguai."
Rumplestiltskin's entire body tenses. He can't help the way he pulls Belle closer to himself, so close he can feel the thrum of her heartbeat pulsing against his. Instead of recoiling, Belle strokes her hand back through his hair.
"Regina was scared," Belle says, so quietly he has to lean in to hear her. "She loved her father, and she was afraid to die, but even more afraid to recant of her evil because then what was there left of her? I stayed with her, just outside the bars, night after night, even after Snow stopped her execution. I told Regina that I would help her be a better person. That she could go back to who she'd been before magic twisted her."
"It wasn't magic that set her on that path," Rumplestiltskin interrupts her, half-derisive and half-shamed. "Regina chose the darkness out of a desire for revenge—and kept choosing it whenever the option was presented."
Belle hesitates. "Whenever you presented it," she says.
"Yes." He looks away, to the coffee table where their shared books are stacked atop one another. To the chair where he usually sits, just that bit removed from her warmth, at the perfect vantage point to look over the top of his book and watch Isabel (Belle) enjoy her own stories. The space is a comfortable haven, filled with memories of when he was happier than he could admit (thanks, in large part, to its temporary nature), but it is also an indictment. If he were a better man (a man who made right choices), this could all still be his.
"Well, Regina made her choice then, too," Belle finally says. "She was crying, and I didn't want her to be alone. So I went inside her cell…and she stabbed me with a shard of glass she'd made from her mirror. I was laying there in a puddle of blood, dying, when Snow White came with her spelled dagger and her test."
His fault, then. Always, always, his fault. He'd given Snow that idea, that test, that dagger, the spell that protected her and her prince (and no one else) from Regina in that land. And all for Bae (and he'd do it all again).
"Snow didn't even see me in the shadows. She didn't hear me. She just…let Regina go. And even when David saw me, when they got me to a healer…it's like it didn't matter." Belle tugs her hands free of Rumplestiltskin's to cover her face, as if ashamed for him to see her tears. "They called it banishment, but what do they know of it? They were safe. They couldn't be harmed. But me…others…all those people whose hearts she stole?" She shakes her head as if to shake away her tears. "They thanked me for my service and gave me a room with a shelf full of books and went back to planning their wedding."
"Oh, Belle."
"I know they didn't mean to be unkind. I know they had good intentions. I know…I know they think they did the right thing. But…she tried to kill me, and they didn't even care."
"I was going to lose Bae, and nobody cared," Rumplestiltskin whispers all at once, the truth slipping from him like poison leeched from a wound. "They wanted to send him to war against the ogres. He was only thirteen, just a boy. No fairies came to grant my wish. No fair and just ruler showed up to save all the children. No one ever comes to save my family. Not my wife. Not my son. Not…"
You.
(They both hear it, no matter that he can't speak the single word.)
"You came," Belle says, and she's sitting up, and she's looking at him, and her eyes are so very luminous, sapphire suns beaming warmth and hope at him. "Even after I said those awful things today, you came for me. You noticed I was missing, and you found help, and you wouldn't have stopped unless I asked you to."
"She should never have touched you," he says in a near hiss. Even depleted, his magic groans like the beginnings of an earthquake, slow rumblings moving for the surface.
"I don't care about her," Belle says. "At lunch, I was… No, it was before then. When Snow and David and Emma came to our front door, and they didn't listen to me. You asked if I was afraid and I said I wasn't, but…"
"I know," he says softly. On his fingertip, he catches a single one of her tears. "Trust me, sweetheart, you don't have to explain to me."
"But I want to," she says, and she takes his fingertip and kisses it, swallowing up her own tear. "Rumple, my father…he said a lot of things yesterday, and it reminded me of all the stories I heard in our land about the Dark One. It was easy to forget that last night, when you needed me, but then…today, I could only think about the last time I tried to help someone other people called a monster."
"And you didn't want to be hurt again."
Her mouth twists. "I didn't want to be a fool again. But you're not her, Rumple. You could never be her. You said she chose this path out of revenge, but you…" Her eyes see too much. "You chose it to save your son. Didn't you? To keep him from the ogre's war?"
Suddenly, he wishes he were still holding his cane. His fingers itch for something to fiddle with, to roll between them (to spin from uselessness to power). As if she senses this, Belle cups his right hand in her palm and then moves it up to her cheek. Instinctively, his fingers play her hair through between them (so much more precious than mere gold).
"Yes," he finally breathes. Truth and secret (and trust) all contained in that single word.
"And everything you've done since…it's all been to find him?"
Last night, tattered and wounded, he'd hardly been aware of the fact that he shattered in her arms (that she had to hold him together like a doll made of straw and wool and false impressions). But now, in their library, on her couch, he is painfully, acutely aware of just how frail he is. Just how tenuous his hold on sanity remains. She deserves so much more than an old monster who can't even stand up straight under the weight of his crimes.
(And maybe he can make the right choice.
Maybe the right thing to do is to let her go now, before she's hurt again, left bleeding and dying in a shadowed corner.)
"I let him go," he makes himself say. These words don't come easy; the confession is forced from the very depths of his most buried being. "He hated this curse I took on. The magic. What it turned me into. He wanted to save me. But instead of going with him like I was supposed to…I let him go. His hand…"
She presses his flexing hand tighter against the curve of her head, letting him grasp her curls and play them over his knuckles until he can once more ignore how empty his hand has felt ever since Bae's was torn from him.
"I just want him to know that I love him. That I've never forgotten him or stopped looking for him. I should never have let him go. I didn't want to. I've regretted it ever since, and there…there is no greater pain than regret."
"I'm sorry," she whispers, and this time, when she slides into his lap, she doesn't bury her face in his throat. This time, she wraps her arms around him and guides his head to rest on her shoulder as his whole body is wracked with trembling sobs. "I'm so sorry. We'll find him, Rumple, I promise. I'll do whatever I can to help you. We'll find him."
"I can't find him without magic," he mutters, breathing in the scent of her, the closeness of her (the promise she presses into the crown of his head). "But he'll hate me for still needing it. It's a crutch, I know that, but I can't let go of it, Belle, I can't. I'm nothing without it."
"Shh. It's okay."
"Regina already came for you. There are so many more enemies waiting to find a weakness, and if I don't have magic, how will I protect him? But how can I show him that I love him more than anything when I'm still just the same failure of a father he already left?"
"Rumple," she says, the slightest sharpness at the edge of her voice. "Stop that. You love him. You love him more than I've ever seen anyone love anything, and he'll recognize that. Maybe not right away, maybe not without a lot of anger and resentment, but…you're his father."
"Do you…do you think you can you forgive your father?" He's afraid of the answer, but asks anyway, every fiber of his being intent on her answer.
(He's never sure, from moment to moment, whether he's forgiven his.)
"Eventually," she says without even pausing. "And maybe I'm wrong, but I think he's done far worse to me than you've done to Baelfire."
Rumplestiltskin looks away. "You don't know what I've done."
"No," she says. "No. I don't. But I do know this—I don't want you to change. Not like you, or even I, was thinking earlier. I love you, Rumplestiltskin, exactly as you are. And I'm not saying that this is going to be easy, or that I'm not going to make as many mistakes as you do, or that I'll ever be happy with the dark choices you make, but…but I love you. I love you for being cunning and patient and manipulative. I love you for the way you can love someone so unconditionally and so—"
Rumplestiltskin kisses her. He doesn't mean to (or so he tells himself). It just happens.
She's not leaving. This isn't goodbye. She still wants him (she still chooses him).
She's a miracle, and Rumplestiltskin has always been a man who grasps for every good and impossible thing fate dangles before him (no matter how wise or how foolish or how self-destructive).
So he kisses her. He sweeps her into his arms and pulls her onto his lap and opens his mouth against hers until he can almost believe that all the world is made up of her. Belle. Isabel. Both. Both his.
"And I love you," he breathes into her, and it is the first time he's said it aloud, but it feels like the dozenth, like the hundredth (like a truth so integral to who he is that she is as much a part of him as Bae). "Oh, beautiful Belle, I love you."
"I love you too," she whispers back, like it's a deal, like she gets something equally as valuable from this (and she doesn't, she's wrong about this monster, too, and he will end up hurting her so much more badly than Regina ever did, but he will delay that day as long as he possibly can, will prolong this ephemeral joy with every bit of strength that is his to command).
She twines her fingers through his hair at the nape of his neck, using that soft touch to angle his head so she can search out any secrets he holds within the caverns of his mouth. Rumplestiltskin arches up at the same time as he pulls her down against him, and the resulting explosions of sensation that spiral like fireworks through his nerves system have both of them gasping and making sounds he frantically memorizes. Her movements turn nearly desperate, her hands clawing at his shoulders, at his chest, and he feels the same urgency, though he tempers his movement with an iron self-control he can already feel slipping.
A book falls with a thump to the thick carpet, knocked aside by either his elbow or her knee, but it does nothing to distract Rumplestiltskin from the feel of her soft, soft skin as his hand glides beneath her shirt and up toward her ribcage. She arches at the touch, and Rumplestiltskin's lips slide from hers to meander down her throat, along her collarbone, and then, daringly, breathlessly, lower.
"Rumple," she keens, and then her hands are framing his face, pulling him up until he looks at her through glazed eyes. "Rumple," she says again, firmer, but still breathless, her hands restless against his skin, her body hot as a fever where she's pressed against him. "I want this," she says. "I want you. But…"
A flash of sanity returns at that last word (and all its permutations).
But…she is sad and weary and hurting.
But…he is mourning and wounded and still so very disbelieving at how she can be real.
(But…there is no going back from this, and married or not, it is a big change. A huge transition. And maybe she will regret it in the morning and definitely he will hate himself for doing anything she doesn't fully want.)
"I want this," she says again (as if she knows the dark thoughts running through his mind). "But when we're both sure. When we're ready. Maybe," she smiles at him, "when neither one of us is crying."
It's almost physical pain, to separate himself from her, but that reassures him that this is the right decision. His son is still outside his reach, he still can't afford distractions, and any sacrifice he makes for Bae's sake is right and good and only fitting.
Besides, Belle slides her hand into his as they head upstairs together. She doesn't seem nervous or uncomfortable when she emerges from the bathroom in her usual nightgown and bare feet, slipping her earrings into the bowl on her vanity. Her smile is pure for all that it is not wide, and she doesn't hesitate to slide closer to him in the bed.
"Is this okay?" she asks.
"It's perfect," he says honestly. She's still here. She still wants him. She says she loves him.
(None of it seems possible, but this would hardly be the first time he contents himself with delusion rather than reality.)
More than all that, she's safe. She's safe and whole and well, and this day could have gone a thousand different ways, all with worse outcomes, so he can't complain.
Tomorrow, he thinks, or maybe the day after, he will pay his debt to the prince (less than he thought it was now that he knows how careless Charming and his wife were with Belle in their old land), perhaps a charm for Henry who will doubtless already be feeling the aftereffects of the sleeping curse.
And then…then he will turn all his attention to breaking through the town line. Because if he stays, he will kill Regina. And then Belle will see the monster. And he'll lose her.
Of course, he'll lose her anyway, but there is just enough hope in him now to let him think that maybe, maybe, he can keep her long enough to find his son.
And once he has Bae…well, then he can survive anything.
(Then, he will pay his penance in full.)
Belle doesn't open her store in the morning. Instead, she and Rumplestiltskin enjoy a leisurely breakfast talking about anything and everything. She tells him about the library she kept in her childhood home, and about her mother, and about her love for roses. He tells her that he loved to spin even before he could turn straw into gold, and confides in her a clearly well-loved memory of Baelfire's first lesson at the wheel, and sometimes, instead of talking, he stares at her as if he's never seen a dream come alive before.
It's a captivating look, one that goes straight to Belle's head (to her heart).
He is the Dark One. Seeing him seconds from murdering Regina would have told her that if nothing else did. But he's more too. Unsure, so often around her, and sweet in a shy way that has her swallowing back admiring coos, and so incredibly dear to her.
When he admits that Henry Mills is probably having nightmares, and that he means to make him a charm to protect him from the netherworld's flames, Belle insists on accompanying him to his shop and keeping him company. There's something almost mesmerizing about watching him at work—not the rents and ledgers, or even the antiques he restores (though those have an allure of their own). But magic. There's…almost a…a glow…to him, as if she can see the sheen of hidden scales. As if this is what he was born to do. As if this is what he loves to do. It makes sense to him, and there is no hesitation, no diffidence, no fear in him at all as he mixes the potion and adds the ingredients kept so precisely in his specific organization.
(She wonders if this is what she looks like while reading or at her store. She wonders if he likes seeing her in her element just as much as she likes seeing him in his, and if that's why she so often catches him staring at her over the top of his own book.)
They are interrupted only once, when Dr. Whale shows up, desperate and ragged and nothing like Isabel remembers him being.
"How do we get back home?" he demands.
"We can't," Rumple says dismissively. There is a callousness there that sets Belle's heart beating fast (the monster showing itself? or is it just his age, his centuries of listening to desperate souls rationalize away their own inner warnings?), a ruthlessness that keeps him inured to Whale's frantic urgency.
"You know I was in the middle of something there!" the doctor exclaims, following Rumple deeper into the shop as if he's not afraid of him. He'd be (nearly) the first, Belle thinks. "I was so close! I have to get back."
"Nearly three decades have passed since Regina's curse swept us all up," Rumplestiltskin says with a dismissive look. "Surely you can't think your brother is still laying there waiting for you?"
"So you mean to do nothing?" Whale's brows draw together. "You let Regina cast that curse, and now you'll just let us rot here in this world that's not ours?"
Rumple gives the suggestion of a shrug. "Enjoy the colorful nightlife."
For an instant, peering through the curtain, Belle thinks the doctor might lunge at Rumplestiltskin. But common sense (or survival instinct, perhaps) prevails, and he backs away, shaking his head. "If you won't help, then I'll find someone who will."
"Good luck with that, dearie."
The bell rings violently, and finally Belle deems it safe to enter the front of the store. Rumple is just turning her way, and at sight of her, though his expression doesn't alter, she can see a new line of tension abruptly threaded through his shoulders.
"No deals today?" she asks as evenly as she can manage. (He didn't stop her from seeing her father; she won't stop him from pulling his strings…or not, as the case may be.)
"I don't need anything from him," he says simply. And then he watches her.
Expectant. Waiting. (Resigned.)
Belle's own spine stiffens. Her chin cants up. She's even able to smile at him, soft and accepting and everything he doesn't seem to believe can be his. "I was thinking that, if we got home in time, I might cook dinner tonight. What are you hungry for?"
"Anything." It's an answer, but she's willing to bet everything she owns that he has no idea what he just said. Instead, he drifts closer, closer, his hand twitching at his side, half-rising toward her before he drops it only to rise again.
Catching his hand up in her own, she presses a kiss to his palm and then pulls him into a hug.
It amazes her, the easiness of it. The opportunity for it. The fact that there is a man who she wants to hug, who wants her to hug him, who makes her happy…who she can make happy. Even something as simple (as profound) as this curves his lips into a dazed smile.
"Are you nearly done here?" she asks.
"I have only to apply the potion to the amulet," he says after blinking himself back to his task. "Then we'll drop by and give it to the prince." He hesitates. "I can do that and meet you at…at h-home."
His slight stumble over that word (the shyness turning his eyes downward) compels her to step forward and hug him again.
"I'll come with you," she says.
Rumplestiltskin sees her as someone so much braver, so much wiser, so much better than she knows she truly is. He looks at her as if he thinks her courageous just to face the kind prince who helped him find her the day before, but Belle wishes she had a way to tell him that this doesn't bother her. Why should the royal couple faze her at all when Rumplestiltskin invites her to stand at his side, and welcomes her closeness, and lets her loop her hand through his left elbow? (How can any obstacle ever again deter her when her reward for facing it is Rumplestiltskin's awe?)
They track down David at Mary Margaret's apartment. Snow White herself looks shaken to find Rumplestiltskin at her doorstep, but David seems less surprised and more welcoming, if still a bit guarded.
"Emma's at the station coming up with arrangements for Regina," he says.
"I'm not here for Sheriff Swan," Rumple says. Even here, under the eyes of these others, he doesn't put any distance between himself and Belle, and Belle can't help but press a bit closer to him. "In fact, it's you I'm here to see. And it's about Henry."
"Henry?" David's eyes sharpen while Snow sets herself between them and the staircase leading up to the loft. Belle thinks about telling her not to bother (she can see the little boy crouching at the top, listening to every word), but instead chooses to say nothing (better silence than to see them, once again, choose not to listen to her).
As Rumplestiltskin explains the ramifications of the sleeping curse, Belle finds herself studying the apartment. It's small, and homely, and she supposes that as a fugitive and a shepherd, Snow and David are easily able to be at home here, but still, the contrast to their palace is staggering. And with three adults and a child, it must be crowded.
Perhaps they like it that way. Perhaps they crave the reminder that their family is, finally, all put back together.
(She hopes, with everything she is, that one day soon, her and Rumple's home will seem as full, as comfortable, as cozy, with Baelfire living in one of the multiple guest rooms.)
"Henry," Rumplestiltskin says, drawing Belle's attention back to the conversation—and ratcheting the tension levels in the room up by a hundred. He looks straight up the stairs to where Henry rises, caught. "Are you having nightmares?"
"Yes," the boy says, carefully. "I didn't know they were because of the curse."
"I'm surprised you didn't warn him," Rumple tells Snow, a smirk on his lips, before he turns to face Henry more fully. Belle moves with him. "You are free, of course, to refuse it if you wish, but wearing this charm while you sleep will give you control of the dream."
"Control?" Snow asks. "Why would he want to control the flames?"
"Because if you can control something, you need no longer fear it."
"Can't you just stop the nightmares?" David asks, wrapping his arm around Snow's shoulders.
"If I could, I assure you, I would." Rumplestiltskin meets David's eyes. "You helped me protect Belle. This is…evening the scales, if you will."
After the slightest pause (Belle holds her breath), David nods. "Thank you."
"Henry?" Rumplestiltskin holds out the silver necklace, and slowly, Henry drifts down the stairs.
"It won't hurt anyone?" Henry asks.
Rumple doesn't even flinch. "No one. It will only aid you while you sleep, and only so long as the netherworld has its hold on you."
"Okay." Henry reaches out and accepts the necklace. Close as she is, Belle can see the tiny smile that graces Rumplestiltskin's thin lips before he straightens, the cool and composed deal-maker once more.
Unexpectedly, she envisions what he might have looked like, once upon a time, as a father to a young boy. She doesn't think there'd have been much of this aloof behavior then. In fact, she's suddenly quite sure that Rumplestiltskin was a loving, even coddling papa.
"Thanks, Mr. Gold." Henry nods to Rumple and even smiles at Belle. "I'm so glad you're okay, Mrs. Gold. I'm sorry my mom… Well, I'm sorry."
The apology briefly stuns her (how few think to ever offer even something so simple). Belle smiles warmly back at him. "It's not your fault," she says. "But why don't you call me Belle?"
His smile splits into a grin. "Okay, Belle."
Despite Henry's evident happiness, Belle finds that Snow and David, in short order, have hinted them out of the apartment. Not that Rumplestiltskin was likely to stay much longer anyway (she doesn't think he's comfortable interacting outside of his deal-making, not after so many centuries alone).
As soon as they're out of sight of the apartment, Belle cranes up and kisses Rumple on the cheek.
He blinks at her.
"Thank you," she says. "For helping him."
Though he looks away, his hair a curtain between them, Belle's fairly certain his cheeks have flushed pink. "Well. He's only a child. And the sleeping curse is one of the darkest and most painful that can be bestowed. He didn't deserve that."
"Hmm." Belle hums and then hugs his arm closer to herself. "I think you like him. Him and David."
Rumple scoffs. "They're useful, perhaps." At Belle's expectant look, he rolls his eyes. "I've dealt with far worse."
"Well, I like Henry too." Before she can talk herself out of it, she asks, "Does…does Baelfire look something like him?"
"What?"
"I just…" Belle bites her lip (wishes, belatedly, for Isabel's impulse control). "I wondered what your son looks like. When I imagine him, I see a boy who looks a lot like you."
Silent for nearly a block, Rumple finally says, "He takes more after his mother, fortunately for him. Dark, curly hair, always rumpled and usually with grass stuck in it. His eyes are blue, like hers, but very dark. He was nearly as tall as me when…when I lost him, so I imagine he inherited her height too."
Curiosity burns like fire inside her, but Belle swallows it back. They will have time, later, to talk about this wife of his, Baelfire's mother, the woman he might once have loved like he does Belle. But for now…for now, Baelfire is what is important. Him—and Rumple's trust (this, she thinks, is an even greater, weightier gift than his heart, these memories of his precious boy, entrusted to her hands).
"He must be so handsome," she murmurs.
Rumple's laugh has more than a hint of tears, well-hidden but, she thinks, always there. "Well, I'm hardly unbiased, but…he's the most beautiful thing in all the realms, Belle." They are nearly to their porch when he says, so quietly she'd have missed it if she weren't plastered against him, "I miss him so much."
"I can't wait to meet him," she says back, just as quietly.
His face softens as he looks at her. "He's probably all grown up by now. It's been over three hundred years."
"But you know you'll find him." She tries not to let her surprise (or her sudden doubt) show in those six words, but Rumple only smiles, the barest quirk of his lips.
"A seer promised me. The same one who told me I would have a son. And once I could see the future…I saw the way to him. No matter how many other routes I tried to take, how many alternate paths I went down, I always knew this would be the way I was guaranteed to see him again. I vowed to let nothing stop me. To…to love nothing else."
It's impossible to be offended or put off by that when he's simultaneously caressing his knuckles over her cheek in the softest touch she's ever felt. When he's looking at her like that.
"You were so close," she teases him.
"Belle…" His eyes flutter closed for a brief second before he opens them again and says, "You're just as beautiful as he is. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
And how can she help but to kiss him at that?
Somehow, they make it inside. Somehow, she even pulls herself together enough to find the recipe card she wants and start dinner. But she can no longer contain the joy inside when, after finishing up the last bite on his plate, Rumple slides a familiar-looking piece of paper over the table to her.
"If you'd like?" he asks shyly.
Belle smiles, and scoops up the coupon, and makes as much of a curtsy as she can while seated. "I'd like nothing better," she says, and then she laughs, and ignores the dishes, and stumbles into his lap, her arms winding around his neck, to kiss him deeply. (She never lets go of the coupon, though, just like she'll never let go of him.)