A Favor Owed

by Anti-Kryptonite

Emma still owes Gold a favor, and a new threat to Storybrooke has Gold cashing it in. Will Emma hold up her end of the deal or find a way to save everybody? Either way, she's bound to betray SOMEONE. When Pan comes to Storybrooke and the undoing prophecy comes due, it's time to finally decide if villains can ever get a happy ending. (Conclusion to A Good Life and An Early Arrival)

3. Chapter 3

A/N: Wow, it has been far too long. Life has been INSANELY busy, but I think I was also kind of reluctant (or scared?) to end this trilogy that I've loved writing so much. Anyway, I finally buckled down and got the last couple scenes written, and here we are, at the end of the story-but definitely not the end to my love for this couple! :) I hope you all enjoy the final chapter, even after such a long wait, and please let me know what you think of it. I hope you've had as much fun as I've had, and I hope to see you on the next story that I plan to start posting (hopefully) today! Thank you for all the support you have all shown for this version of Rumbelle!

---

Chapter 3

---

Neal doesn't want to be here—for a whole host of reasons. Staring at the front of Storybrooke's small police station, he makes a list of all the other places he'd rather be. It's a long list, starting with anywhere but Neverland and ending with my papa's sickbed (sickbed, not deathbed, he has to believe that or else he finds his throat closing in and his lungs collapsing). But here he is, and here he'll stay until he can force himself to keep moving forward. Which means that he picks up his foot, moves it forward, picks up his other foot, repeats the process…until he's pulling open the glass door and entering the wide hallway leading back toward Emma's office.

Oh. And the cells, in one of which Greg Mendell is standing, gripping the bars and demanding information.

Neal ignores him the same way he ignored the sight of Tamara being unloaded from an ambulance and wheeled into the hospital (there were much more important things to focus on, like his papa being surrounded by white-coated people he could only hope knew anything about magic…or medicine…or more likely, some combination of the two). Today, his eyes skid right past Greg to the office where Emma's rising from her desk at the sight of him.

She looks tired.

Not that he expects any differently. The last two days have been nothing but stress, and mad as he is at her, he can't pretend that she hasn't been carrying her own share of burdens. Still, the sight of it tugs at something deep inside him (a well of protectiveness).

He ignores it.

"All right," he says as he enters her office and throws himself down on the chair across from her. "I'm here. What's so urgent I had to leave Papa and Isabel?"

Two furrows carve themselves into Emma's brow. "How's he doing?"

Clenching his hands into fists, he looks away. "Same as he has been since…"

"Yeah." There's a wealth of understanding in her tone (she's had her own magical kiss to come to terms with; her own curse that broke in a way she never could have predicted). But Neal doesn't want to think about the points in common they have. He can't (not when all he can see, over and over again, is Emma throwing away the keys to his father's salvation).

"And Isabel? She's still…?"

"Still Isabel," he confirms. A sudden edginess has him shifting in his seat, ready (eager) to leap to his feet and put this place (Emma's sad, tired, strained face) behind him. "You know, I could have told you this over the phone. If there's—"

"I need something to charge Greg and Tamara with," she says bluntly. "Which means I need your statement. That'll cover kidnapping and attempted murder. I'm still trying to figure out what 'blow up the town with magic' should fall under."

"And what about complicit in the crimes of torture?" Neal says, his nails digging into his palms (there are screams echoing in his ears; nightmares that aren't his but keep him awake anyway).

"Neal." Emma takes in a sharp breath. "When they had you—"

"I'm talking about Papa."

"I…thought that was Pan."

"Yeah, well, they helped."

"Speaking of…" Emma straightens. "There's trees growing through Main Street. And some kind of rock outcrop jutting up into Town Hall. And, according to Granny, roots coming up through her freezer. Reports say it happened two days ago." She hesitates. "About the time that cloud was at its biggest."

Neal scoffs. "And they're trying to blame Papa for it?"

"No." She looks away (she's never been a good liar). "People are scared. Pan came out of nowhere and then was gone almost as quickly. Now there are woods growing up through this town we all know shouldn't be here and they say that cloud looked a lot like the curse that brought everyone here. So I don't think its unreasonable for most of the townspeople to be afraid that Storybrooke is about to fade back into the Enchanted Forest."

"The townspeople." He studies her. "Or you?"

A wash of something (maybe terror; maybe resignation; maybe some mix of both of those with a whole bunch of other uncomfortable emotions) washes over her face. Her shoulders sag. "I don't want to go to that other world," she admits, and if she should sound childish, she only sounds wise to Neal (to the child inside him that ran as far and as fast from magic as he possibly could).

"Look," he says. "Here's what I know from what Regina's said and what little Papa's been able to pass along." Not that Papa's been conscious for long, or coherent for more than a moment at a time, but still, Bae lived a long time around Pan. He knows how to read between the lines. "Pan was powered by Neverland by way of some pact made through a sacrifice. Since the sacrifice was Papa"—and no, Neal is not thinking of that part of this whole thing—"Pan was able to link some new pact with a new sacrifice. Only, Papa's magic comes by way of a curse, which makes him immortal. Meaning Pan couldn't kill Papa—or touch his magic that's connected to Storybrooke—without draining it out of him. Regina said Papa's curse seeks a host, and Papa said there's only one way for it to pass to someone else, but with blood magic, Pan was able to put himself in Papa's place. Or at least try."

"Which means…what? He could control Storybrooke?"

"He could use Papa's magic—and the heart he was going to steal from his chest—to turn this town into his new Neverland. And from here, with Neverland's help, he could reach any other world. Papa wouldn't really die. I don't think he can while he carries the curse of the Dark One"—another thing he isn't thinking about—"but he'd be nothing more than a Shadow. And Shadows have always been Pan's playthings."

Emma blinks. Blinks again. Then shakes her head shortly and says, "Then why did Pan need to kill you?"

Inside his chest, Neal feels his heart twist into something small and misshapen. "He didn't. He just wanted to. To break Papa. Turn him into dust that could never fight his hold on him."

"But Belle killed him," Emma says.

The laugh that escapes Neal is so bitter, so jaded (so filled with a couple centuries of pain) that Emma recoils. "Pan's not dead," he says. "He may be dying, but a bullet can't kill him so long as Neverland's powering him. But Regina trapped him in Pandora's Box, and as long as no one opens it, he'll be stuck there, forever on the edge of dying."

If anything can make Neal feel something beyond the numbness protecting him right now, it's the thought of Pan in eternal pain, and he doesn't care if that makes him a bad person.

Grimacing, Emma runs a hand back through her hair. "And Gold? If his magic snapped back inside him, I don't understand why he's not getting better. I mean, I know Henry said that Pan's magic tainted Gold's, and that your kiss cleansed it, but doesn't that mean that his immortality should kick back in and have him back on his feet?"

For a long moment, Neal can't speak. In the end, he only manages two words. "You'd think."

"Is there…something I can do? Not magic," she shudders, "but something else."

"Seems like an offer you could have made a couple days ago," he says lowly.

And there it is. The elephant in the room. The shadow between them. The anchor at his back and the stones in his shoes and the pain in his heart.

Neal and Emma were together for just over one year. They traveled together, robbed together, hid together, ran together; all their plans were made with each other at the heart of them. Never once, after he awkwardly offered to leave her the car and she shyly said they should both stay, had he ever doubted her. He fell in love with her even before he knew his longing for her company was anything more than his loneliness. He vowed to be everything to her even before he found the courage to bring it up to her with his suggestion that maybe they could stop running (that maybe this could be the world that was his forever). He left her because he thought he would only hold her back, that he was the bad thing in her life, that he'd hurt her and ruin her and bring darkness into her life (like Papa; like the Darlings; like everyone he's ever touched).

Coming to town, watching her from afar, dreading their confrontation, he'd expected her anger, her apathy, her resentment, her firm demand that he leave her alone forever.

But always, always he's known he can depend on her. When Greg pulled him into that chokehold and put a gun to his head, when he tied him to a tree with a knot any Lost Boy could have done (and often did) better, Neal hadn't been scared. He knew that Emma would come for him. She'd save their son and she'd come for him, for Henry's sake if not for her own.

And she did. She came. She threw him a knife (and hope) and handed him a gun (her heart) and he'd dared to think the day would end better than it'd begun.

And then she'd betrayed him.

It's wrong to think of it that way, he knows, when she just wanted to save him. Neal's had few enough people in his life look out for his interest (Papa, who took on a dark curse and doomed them all to this fate; Moirraine who he never even said goodbye to and whose face he can't even recall anymore; Wendy and her family, who were nearly destroyed by his entrance into their home and their lives; Hook for…no, not even him, not really, not as more than a means to an end). He should treasure this one above all (especially after everything he's done to her).

But he can't. He can't because he thought she was on his side and she threw his papa to the wolves. He thought she maybe possibly still loved him (at least could forgive him) and she stabbed him in the back.

(And then saved you again, a voice whispers in the caverns of his heart, between the echoing screams.)

"Neal," she says. She rises (Neal's entire body tenses), rounds the desk (his heart is galloping in his chest), takes the seat beside him (he can't smell anything but her, mint and spruce and something almost metallic), and if the slight movement of her hand is her reaching to touch him, he flinches away before she can. "Neal," she says again, "I had to save you."

It's not an apology (not that he expected one).

Papa never gave one for taking on that dark curse either.

"You left Papa for dead."

"I thought he could—"

"Take care of himself, I know. You saw how well that worked out. If I hadn't come to distract Pan, if Isabel weren't there to take that shot, if Regina and August didn't show up with Pandora's Box, if…"

If Emma didn't materialize out of nothing to put herself between Neal and Pan.

"It's a lot of ifs," she concedes. "But I don't think you're being fair to Gold here. He's the one who gave me your baby blanket and told me how to use the magic I wouldn't be able to use on the other side of the town line where you were. He's the one who gave Isabel that gun and that potion. He's the one who sent August off to find Regina and get Pandora's Box. Neal, I know that you needed to be there and maybe I should have found a different way to save you, but…I think your dad did have everything taken care of."

And what is Neal supposed to say to that? Is he supposed to talk in the open about the terrible screams that fill that big, too-full, too-empty house in the night hours? Is he supposed to admit to the tears his papa can't hide when he turns his face from the light and pretends to be sleeping? Is he supposed to pretend he didn't hear what Pan called him, or think of how small and lost and hurt Papa looked while Pan (an older, grown version of him) reached for him, his chest bleeding, his lower half evaporating into that Box?

How can he tell her that Papa's always been better at sacrificing himself than he is at living for the people he loves?

He can't. So he says nothing, and if Emma reads that as agreement, there's nothing he can do about it.

"I am sorry, though," she murmurs. This time, when her hand touches his, he doesn't pull away. "I'm sorry you had to go through that at all. I'm sorry your dad's not better. I'm sorry I couldn't help more." She snorts. "Everyone keeps calling me Savior and I don't know how much clearer I can make it that I'm never going to be that person."

"You are that person." The words are out before he (or his misplaced anger) can stop them. He hooks his pinkie, so carefully, over hers and says, "You saved me."

"I know, but even that was mostly Gold—"

"No. I mean, yes, you did then too, and from Greg and Tamara, but I meant…I meant when we met."

"Neal…"

"I was so alone. I'd been alone for so long. I didn't have anything else to live for, nothing except refusing to give Pan the satisfaction of not surviving without him. But then I met you. And you're so…you're so alive, Emma. So defiant. So unbowed. You save everyone you can and beat yourself up over the others and…" He shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable (he's never been good at moments like this, never heard the right stories of love and relationships in Neverland, had no good example to follow in his parents). "I don't…I don't know how to say it, but you…you're amazing, Emma."

"You too," she says in a voice so faint he can scarcely hear it. He definitely feels her fingers weaving through his, though. "And I think I know how to say it."

"Sure," he says. "You have a lot more practice, don't you?"

Her eyes narrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You have so many people who love you. Your parents. Henry. August."

"August does not—"

"Me."

Her breath audibly catches. It's too much. He knew it was. He's known it since he arrived in town (no, even before that, since he met her and realized he could never deserve her). But he's been holding it in so long, and even pretending that he's mad at her for not saving his papa (when it's him, him all along who's responsible for every single bad thing in his papa's life) hasn't been able to stop him from thinking over everything she's done for him lately.

She lets him hang around her far too often, too long, too happily.

She came for him even though it meant leaving Henry.

She chose him over his papa, over her parents, over the town.

She's taken every snide comment, every heated glare, he's dished out without complaining or arguing.

She's still holding his hand.

"This is how you say it," she says (as if she's going to ignore his confession), and Neal looks away. Her hand tightens over his while the other one reaches to cup his cheek. "I love you."

His heart cracks, releasing something he thought he'd boxed up a long time ago.

"Emma…?"

Her eyes are watery and so brightly green, but her smile is sincere for all its shakiness. "I do," she says. "I tried not to. I didn't want to. When I saw your name on that town registry, when I saw you outside the pawnshop, I would have given anything not to love you. I don't ever want to hurt the way I did when you left me. I can't go through that again. You know I told Henry his dad was dead? I wished that was the truth because then it would mean that I never had to worry about actually getting over you."

There's a certain morbidness to this confession that makes Neal wonder if Emma isn't as bad at all these moments as he is. Still, it works for him. He's been around pain and torment and nightmarish scenarios his entire life. Maybe it's only fitting that the woman of his dreams tells him she loves him by way of wishing him dead.

Or maybe it's just Emma.

"Because I'm not," she says, and looks away as the tears spill over onto her cheeks. "I'm not over you, Neal. I never got over you. I don't think I ever will."

"I hope not," he says fervently, and pulls her into his arms.

She comes immediately, willingly, pliant in his arms as he buries his face in her hair and wraps himself around her. This close, he can feel the tiny tremors running through her body—or are those his? Either way, he holds her tight as he can from their awkward position until (maybe she starts it, maybe he does), they stand, and this way, he can hold her so much more securely. She feels just like she did twelve years ago. Every bit as good as he's remembered (dreamed, imagined, hoped for).

"Emma," he whispers. Because if this is all she wants to give him, he can be happy. He can be content with shared lunches in her office and evenings with their son and his own bed at night; her friend. But if there's more…oh, if there's more he'd be more than happy.

"Neal," she says. It's answer enough (the way she says this name of his is what makes him want to keep it over any other).

Their first kiss in over a decade is clumsy, made so by her tears and his nerves. Their mouths barely connect, his lips catching her cheek, hers glancing off his chin. She chuckles, he laughs, and then he cups her face in both hands and slants his mouth perfectly over hers (the taste of her laughter is so much better than any substitute). One of her arms winds itself around his waist (he has a moment of insecurity over the bagels he eats every morning, the hot chocolate he's been sharing with her, his absolute hatred of any running as recreational sport rather than a means of survival), the other hooks around his neck to pull him closer to her.

It's perfect in every particular. Neal wouldn't change a single thing about it. In fact, he tells her as much, and has to kiss her again when she laughs.

"Weren't you just yelling at me over something?" she asks.

"No." Her fingers tickle the back of his neck, and he yelps and ducks away—only for an instant, before she's pulling him back in, her mouth warm and open against his. "Okay, I was mad. Kind of like you've been mad at me for a decade. Think we're even now?"

She pulls back to raise her eyebrows at him. If she's expecting him to back down (if she's expecting him to stop loving his papa the way she loves her family), he doesn't give in. Instead, he stares back at her. It goes against every natural inclination he has, but he loosens his arms around her, ready for her to step away.

She steps closer. "Yeah," she says. "Okay, fine, we're even. Everything from here on out is a fresh start."

His grin breaks through whatever walls he's done his best to erect between them. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

And this kiss is even better than the one before. Her hand is hot against the side of his neck, her other pushes up past his hoodie and shirt to reach skin, and Neal can't control the way he buries his own hand in her hair while refamiliarizing himself with the contours of her form with the other. The only thing that stops them, before they can quite stumble back into the desk, is the ringing of Neal's phone.

Any other day, any other situation, he'd ignore it (Emma's so much more important), but not today. Not with his papa still unable to get out of bed and Isabel refusing to leave his side and Henry so recently in danger.

The silence (the distance between them) allows them both to realize that Greg's yelling at them from the other room. Emma rolls her eyes and gives him a rude gesture while Neal pulls out his phone.

"Isabel?" he says. "What is it?"

"I think you should come home," she says in what he's coming to think of as her habitual small voice, shrunk by worry and discomfort and unvoiced terror (she's pretty much the woman he befriended, but not the one who invited him to dinner for his papa; she's his friend but not his step-mother, and Neal still hasn't quite been able to tell where the lines between the two are). "Your father's awake and he's… I think you should come home, Bae."

Neal staggers. Emma's hand on his spine catches him up, provides some form of balance.

"Neal? What is it?"

"I don't know," he says blankly. "I don't know." Then he catches her hand and asks (begs), "Could you come with me? Please?"

A part of him thinks he's asking for too much too soon (she's admitted she loves him and kissed him and they've cleared the air between them, isn't that enough for one day?), and another part of him thinks of her pale face and the circles under her eyes and the exhaustion in her voice when she spoke of the town's expectations of her.

But there's only calm resolution in her face now, as she meets his eyes and says, "Of course. I'm here, Neal. I'm right here with you."

And she is. She drives him to Papa's house (in their car) and walks with him up to the stained-glass door (not quite hand in hand because she's a cop and has a gun and a badge clipped to her belt and needs her hands free, and he's used to keeping his avenues of escape free and open; but her elbow brushes against his with every step and it means just as much) and helps him walk back into the dark confines of this place that's been his hell, or rather, his limbo, for the past day and a half (since Dr. Whale said there was nothing medically wrong with Papa that could be fixed and Isabel insisted on taking him home and Papa insisted on walking out on his own feet so no one saw him broken and vulnerable).

"Bae? Is that you?" Isabel greets him from the top of the stairs.

"I'm here," he calls up. "Emma's with me."

There's a slight pause (Neal wasn't the only one Emma tried to strand in the woods) before she says, "Come on up."

His papa's house in this realm is so different from the tiny hut he dreamed about (and tried to forget) during his long imprisonment in Neverland. But still, there's something about the clutter, the smell, that makes him think Papa, even if only subconsciously. Of course, he's walked up and down this staircase too many times in the past couple days to not know the way back to his papa's room.

His papa had insisted on leaving the hospital without assistance (Isabel linked her arm through his and held him up without ever looking anything but calm), and then, as soon as he passed the threshold into his private space, he collapsed. And hasn't gotten up since. It was Neal who had to carry him upstairs to his bed, Isabel who hasn't left his side since, and Neal who's running himself ragged bringing them anything they might need, asking his own kid for answers without scaring him about how bad off Papa still is, pacing up and down the halls (anything but sitting at his papa's bedside and hearing the cracked and hopeless way he whimpers Bae's name).

"Emma," he whispers.

"Yeah?"

"Please don't tell anyone how Papa really is. He doesn't want—"

"I get it. It's okay, Neal. I won't tell anyone."

"Thanks."

And then he's there, at the doorway, where soft murmurs beckon him forward.

"I'll stay right here," Emma says. "If you need me."

He can't help pressing a quick kiss to the side of her head, and then he makes himself walk into the room.

Isabel looks relieved to see him (or maybe just that Emma isn't with him). "Bae," she says. "He's been asking for you."

"Bae," his papa says, and Neal startles despite himself (he hadn't realized Papa was awake).

"Hey, Pops," he says, then immediately winces. It's too casual, too easy…too cruelly blasé considering the strained tightness crimping his papa's face and making his eyes seem too large for his head. To make up for it, he sits on his papa's right side (instinctively careful not to jar his bad ankle) and takes his hand.

"I'll leave you two to talk," Isabel murmurs. In direct contrast to Neal's own immediate desire to keep her here (a safe buffer between all the many, many pitfalls lurking between him and his father), Papa only smiles gently at her.

"Thank you, sweetheart," he says.

Though she summons up a smile for Rumplestiltskin, Neal doesn't miss the way her face falls back into anxiousness the instant she turns to hurry out of the room.

"What's this about, Papa?" he asks—or starts to. He's cut off by Papa trying to sit upright.

"Help me up, son, would you?" he pants.

Shaken, Neal leans forward and helps support Rumplestiltskin as he pulls himself up. "Papa, are you sure—"

"I need out of this bed. That chair—help me sit there. Please."

Against his better judgment (shaking inside at just how frail his papa feels in his arms), Neal supports him on his shambling walk the four paces to the chair sitting by the large bay window, covered completely by burgundy curtains. Only when Papa's settled, a blanket draped over him (Neal doesn't like the way he shivers), and Neal is perched on the accompanying footstool does Papa meet his eyes.

"I'm sorry, son," Papa says.

It's strange, really, how instantaneously an apology from his father (spoken in that high, shuddering voice) has all of Neal's anger roaring back to life inside him. He supposes someone could make a case about his long hurt, and resentment, and defensiveness all building up walls inside him, all triggered by the sound of an apology he never thought he'd get. Or maybe it's worse than that—something more directly in line with his heritage. His legacy. The family line stretching back further than he knew—with darker parts than just a cursed dagger.

"I never wanted this for you," Papa continues, oblivious to Neal's turmoil. "I never wanted you to be burdened with a father you could only be ashamed of."

"Like you were?" he asks.

Papa goes quiet, averting his eyes.

"Papa. What Pan said, there at the end…he's not…is he?"

"He is." Papa's voice is so quiet Neal can scarcely hear him (as quiet as when he told Bae his mother was dead; but that was an untruth he feared the lie of while this…this is a truth he wishes a falsehood). "And I wasn't ashamed of him. He was ashamed of me."

"He's a bastard," Neal says evenly. Impulsively, he scoops one of Papa's hands into his. "We're better off without him."

A wince mars Papa's features before he smooths it away. "And you'd be better off without me. Milah told me, too often, that it would have been better for you to be fatherless than to have a coward as a father, a burden always dragging you down."

"Don't be ridiculous," Neal says with an awkward shrug of his shoulders. "You didn't drag me down. You were the one who took care of me. Who loved me."

"I do love you, Bae. That's why I have to talk to you."

Neal stares at him, recognizing that tone of voice. It would be a lie to say his papa's manipulative nature only emerged after he became the Dark One. Truthfully, Rumplestiltskin has always been clever—beaten down and cowed, yes, but still able to think up ways to make the townspeople buy their wares from him, the perfect words to make them think paying the price he asked was their own idea…the exact means to sneak into a heavily guarded castle and emerge with the most valuable treasure in his possession.

However, the darkness certainly exacerbated that Machiavellian bent, and Neal isn't sure how much of Pan he wants to see in his papa's schemes.

(It saved his life, he thinks, remembering Emma's words about how he weighted the board in his favor.)

"What's the plan here, Papa?" he asks bluntly. "You should be better by now. I know it. Isabel knows it. Even Emma knows it. So what's wrong? What's the game?"

Papa's shoulders stiffen. "No game. I promise. Just…a choice."

He shouldn't ask. He doesn't want to know.

"What kind of choice?"

"We had a deal, you and I," Papa says. His fingers fiddle against each other, a tickling movement against Neal's own hand. "I said I'd give up the power if you could find a way without killing me."

"Let's not rehash this," Neal snaps, abruptly edgy. "Not now."

"No, no, I… Please, Bae. This is important. You want to know what's wrong with me? Whatever Pan did upset the balance of power. He tied the Dark One's curse to Storybrooke—and to Neverland. The Neverland part rebounded back onto him, and what was left of it…" Papa's whole face softens as his hand curls around Neal's. "You destroyed that."

"So what's wrong?"

Papa looks away. "The Dark One…the power itself…requires a willing host and a desperate soul. I'm only one of those right now."

"So…what? It's trying to make you sick enough to be desperate?"

"No." Swallowing hard, Papa looks directly at Neal. "It wants to force me to be willing again. To accept it back. It knows—intimately—just how desperate I am. To live. To be with you and…and Isabel. But I can't be willing when I know that this is my second chance."

He feels sick. Or excited. Something that makes his belly roll and his chest tight and his hands tingle.

"When I lost you…" Papa flinches and goes small. "When I let you go…I vowed I would never choose anything over you again. Everything I did was for you. To find you. To tell you that I love you and I'm sorry. I never forgot you."

"We've been over this," he rasps.

"I know, but…I just never thought that I'd have the chance to choose right. This can be our solution, Bae. If I don't take it back…"

"What? It'll leave? It'll be bound to just the dagger?"

"I wouldn't be the Dark One anymore," Papa says.

It's a lie. A truth spoken like a lie; a lie spoken by way of a truth. Either way, it's a misdirect, and Neal spent far too long in Neverland not to spot it right away.

"What will happen to you?" he asks again.

"I… Bae, you wouldn't have to be afraid of me anymore."

"Papa." Neal squeezes his hand so hard he knows it has to hurt, but he can't make himself ease up. "Tell me the truth."

Papa hesitates only a moment before folding (mark of just how tired he is). "I can feel it. The magic. It's straining against me. Different, somehow. Completely altered. I think, if I keep fighting it…I'll lose the fight."

"You'll die," Neal says since his papa won't (too much of a coward? Too much of a hero?).

"You're happy now, right?" Papa asks, desperate and anxious. "You have your boy. And Emma, I think, if all my centuries perfecting True Love has taught me anything. You have a place here. You no longer need to fear Pan. This could be your happy ending."

"Without you?" Neal demands. He's not sure if he wants to hit Rumplestiltskin or hug him. "And what about Belle?"

"Bae…" Papa's eyes are wide and so sincere Neal's heart actually twists inside his chest. "You're my happy ending. I won't fail you again. Besides…I've always known this day is coming."

Neal shakes his head. "What are you talking about? You're immortal."

"The seer," says Papa. "The same one who told me that I was to be a father. The same one who promised I would see you again in another world. She told me that a boy would lead me to you—and that the boy would be my undoing." He lunges forward, clasping both of Neal's hands, a ragged urgency in his raw expression. "I tried to prepare for it. I set up contingencies. Undoing is a vague term. But all along, I knew."

"Papa…"

"Just tell me you want me to give it up and I will. I'll fight to my last breath. I turned coward to see you for the first time, to hold you in my arms—to be there for you. I can turn hero just long enough to ensure you have your happily ever after."

"Then fight," Neal says. He leans forward, tips his brow against his papa's (remembers nights spent huddled under the covers, spinning tales between them, his papa's arm strong and unflinching around him, keeping all the darkness and the cold and the hunger back). "Fight for me, Papa. Don't let go. Don't leave me. I don't want to lose you."

"But the magic…you hate it."

He does. He did. But he kissed his papa's brow and magic flared out all around them and his papa lived.

Not all magic is a curse and murder and dripping blood. Some of it is love and miracles and a papa holding his hands and looking at him with that look in his eyes.

"I love you," Bae whispers. His papa smells of wool and straw and an indefinable something that makes it easy, when he closes his eyes, to imagine he's a kid again (not like in Neverland, children soldiers fighting the impossible; but a kid with a parent and a family and a home to call his own). "I don't think I believe in happy endings, not the way they're told in stories. I think we fight for them every day. I think true happy endings are made up of just as much sorrow and trouble and failure as life, but we keep going anyway. And if you live, Papa, I promise I'll never stop fighting for you. I'll be the light for you, like before, okay? Isabel and me both, even Henry. We'll help you not give into the darkness, okay? Just…don't die. Please, please, Papa, don't die."

"Oh, my boy. Bae, Bae, I love you!"

His papa devolves into a sobbing, shaking mess, but that's kind of appropriate considering Neal's only a breath away from doing the same. It still takes him by surprise, the fact that he can fit his papa into his arms, that his papa's so much smaller than him. But then, Rumplestiltskin holds onto him with a strength so much greater than his fragile frame would suggest. And this time, neither one of them lets go.

It's True Love, after all.

---

For two days, Isabel has lived in a constant state of terror. Even after she fired that single bullet from her husband's gun (watched a boy fall to the ground, eyes wide in desperate fear, and turn into a dying man), even after Bae kissed his father's brow and a wave of warm scarlet and gold light washed over the town to (supposedly) heal him, there has been nothing but dread flavoring her every breath. Dread that grows greater every time her husband shudders in pain, every time he pretends to strength in the sight of others (that only drains him more as soon as they're gone), every silent eternity during which he sleeps and she counts his breaths to ensure there is always another one.

She'd hoped, after he asked to speak to his son, after Bae came out with a relieved smile to hug Emma, that things would get better.

And maybe they will. They still can. She still believes they will.

(Or at least, most of the time she does. When she can breathe. When she can see her husband smiling at her. When she's not suffocating under the weight of his pain.)

But if anything is improving, it's definitely taking its sweet time about it.

"Isabel, sweetheart, please come here." Her husband lifts a hand from the bedspread and holds it out to her.

Giving up on trying to distract herself with the tray of cold tea things, Isabel bites her lip and takes his hand. He pulls her close to his warmth, and she tries to soak it in rather than worry about the shadows under his eyes. His nightmares have been horrible, and though he clings to her, she doesn't seem able to drive them away completely.

"Sit with me," he urges, and Isabel slides beneath the covers to lay her head (so gently, he's so fragile she can feel his bones through his skin) on his shoulder. A tremor shakes through her as she lets herself sink into his warmth, and another when he wraps his arm around her to hold her close. "Oh, sweetheart," he murmurs. "I'm sorry this has been so hard for you."

"Are you dying?" she asks. She hasn't been brave enough to ask, before. She's thought it. Considered it. Tried to brace herself for it (an impossible task). But only now, her face hidden from his sight, her free hand laid over his chest so she can feel his heart beating steadily, does she make herself ask him outright.

"No," he whispers. "Not anymore."

"But you were," she says.

A pause. "Yes."

Isabel presses as close to him as she can get. "Is it Bae? Did he kiss you again?"

Ridiculous. Kisses don't save lives. Not like that. Not in the way she saw Baelfire's kiss bring her husband back to life. Somehow, in the time she's missing, Storybrooke became a place of magic, and she's tired of trying to explain it away.

"He gave me permission to be the father who fails him," he says. As answers go, it's maddeningly vague. "Still, I'd thought…"

"What?" Isabel tries to keep her breathing steady (terror is too close to the surface these days, ready to send her into a breakdown).

"I'd thought his approval would be enough. That I'd be…"

"Better?" She almost makes to sit up before changing her mind and weaving her fingers through his.

"No matter," he says dismissively. "It'll work itself out, I'm sure. I can feel that something's changed. It's not quite so turbulent anymore."

Now she does sit up, her brow creasing as she meets his gaze. "Sweetheart, what's going on? Please, tell me. If there's anything I can do—"

"You've done everything," he interrupts her. He cups her cheek in his palm and gazes at her for a long moment she doesn't dare break. There's a softness to his eyes she would do anything to keep there for as long as possible. "You've done more than I deserve. More than I ever could have expected."

"I like surprising you," she says with an attempt at a smile.

His smile is more real than hers. "You do it without even trying. Just by being you."

At this, Isabel feels a surge of self-consciousness. Averting her eyes, she mutters, "Which me?"

His quiet intake of breath makes her instantly regret the outburst.

"Never mind," she says. "It doesn't matter—"

"It matters. My darling Isabel, the only reason you have forgotten these past months is because you risked your life to save my son. That makes you a hero. My hero."

Isabel blushes and looks away. Everything she did in an effort to make a difference (asking Mr. Gold out, accepting his proposal, searching the house and his shop and the cabin in private moments), to try to help others…and it's him she saved (twice, really, because the gunshot was one thing, but she thinks the loss of his son would have struck the more lethal blow). It makes her realize that sometimes life turns out so much better and more amazing than a fairytale (than her own plans).

"I've been selfish," her husband says. At Isabel's immediate protest, he lifts a warding hand. "No, it's true. I've been thinking only of myself and my son. But he asked me, today, what provisions I'd made for you, and it made me realize how much I've been neglecting you."

"You haven't," she insists.

"Please," he says. "Please, let me do this for you. Would you be kind enough to go down to my study and retrieve something from my safe? The code is 02-12-12. You'll know exactly the paper I mean when you see it."

She protests (the last thing she wants to see right now is his will or anything resembling a last testament), but soon enough, she hurries downstairs and into his study. The last time she came in here alone, she thinks, was the morning after he'd come home so shaken and unlike himself. It's strange, now, being here with his full knowledge—not only that, but also his permission. His blessing, even, considering he so easily gave her the code to the safe she never could open in all her long months of trying.

The safe clicks open with anticlimactic ease, and he was right: she knows the paper he wants immediately.

A sad smile springs to her lips as she takes up the single piece of paper, lying in pride of place apart from the more official documents. Her coupon. One of the twelve she gave him for their one-year anniversary. It's the only paper left, and a twinge strums against her heart at the realization that she has no memory to accompany three of the missing coupons.

She remembers the picnic in her bookstore (their first kiss).

She remembers the six coupons for her absence that he flung at her so vehemently (No one can ever, ever love me!).

She remembers the second slip of paper he pressed into her hands with a promise to meet her at the cabin (she assumes they did meet there, though that's where her memories so abruptly cut off).

But there are three missing coupons in between, and Isabel finds her steps dragging a bit as she leaves the study. Her eyes are drawn to the picture frames adorning the walls. She noticed them immediately, but before, with her husband's weight sagging heavily against her, with his terrible screams echoing through the house, with her terror keeping her from thinking of anything but the next few moments, she hasn't had the chance to really look at them. Now, she takes the time.

So many pictures, all of them boasting a smiling Mr. Gold and her own face, brightened by the love so evident in her eyes as she looks at her husband.

There are pictures of them by an old well in the woods, a picnic basket and soft blanket behind them. There are pictures of them in their kitchen, sharing what looks to be breakfast, Isabel sitting on her husband's lap, her husband staring at her rather than the camera. There's one, tucked into a collage of them, that shows the both of them sitting in a booth at Granny's, pressed nearly cheek to cheek and looking down at something on the table between them. In the center of them all is a picture of Isabel and her husband with Baelfire standing right beside them. He looks awkward and perhaps a bit uncomfortable; her husband's eyes are fixated on him, naked longing painted over his face; and Isabel (no, Belle, really, isn't that what her husband called her?) leans on her husband's shoulder, smiling into the camera, so peaceful and secure.

Some of the photos are blurry, quite a few are strangely angled, but every single one of them shows a happy couple. Kissing, laughing, playing, soft and intimate and comfortable together in a way Isabel was only just learning to be. Hoping to be.

Quite suddenly and unexpectedly, Isabel is nearly felled by the overwhelming tidal wave of want that sweeps over her. She wants these memories back. She wants to be the woman in the pictures, so brilliant and sparkling, as in love as she is loved. She hates that these months were stolen from her, leaving her feeling almost like a stranger in her own home.

"You found it," says her husband.

Isabel hurries to his side and presses the coupon in his hand. "Of course. Right where you said it'd be." And it was, locked up with his most valuable possessions.

"It's for you, I believe," he says with a smirk, passing it right back to her. "Breakfast, tomorrow, down in the library. We'll make a picnic in front of the fire and drink hot tea from a chipped cup and we won't mention my deplorable state at all—we'll talk only about you and how perfect you are."

I'm not perfect, she wants to say (she's missing pieces, vitally important pieces, precious pieces).

Instead, she says, "I'm surprised you still have a coupon. It's almost our second anniversary already."

"Two years," he breathes, strangely awed. "Two years of more happiness than I ever dreamed could be mine."

At his open affection, Isabel spontaneously says, "Let's do it now. I can help you downstairs. I'm sure I could rustle up a picnic for us."

"No," he says (after the slightest hesitation). "Give me tonight, Isabel. Please. Let me just have this one night."

That plea is far too similar to the ones Isabel remembers him rasping out with the last coupon he gave her, all hope and resignation and anguished loss.

Isabel throws herself down against him and wraps her arms around him. "I'm here," she whispers. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I know," he breathes. "I know, Isabel. I just…"

"Tomorrow," she confirms. "Breakfast. You'll be well rested and feeling better and I'll make some finger foods we can eat on the floor in front of the fire."

"Thank you."

Laying her fingers over his lips, Isabel says, softly, "Don't thank me. I want to spend time with you."

That awe floods back into his eyes, and Isabel has to busy herself putting the coupon safely on the nightstand and then readying for bed to prevent herself from smothering him in kisses and embraces that he's not strong enough (yet) to receive.

In the bathroom, staring at her reflection, Isabel lifts the hand that was just pressed against her husband's mouth to her own lips. They tingle and burn as she traces them, her mind and heart filled with the memory of their last picnic (well, the last she remembers). The taste of brownies, the feel of her bookstore's carpet under her legs, her husband's hands searing against her hips and spine.

The sound of his voice as he asked, Who are you?

Now it's her who looks at herself and asks the same question.

"Who are you?"

Or maybe it's the woman in the pictures that she's really asking. The woman that should be her (that she should be) but that exists just outside her reach.

Her husband lifts the covers and welcomes her into his arms without hesitation. With the ease of long practice (at the urging of her own heart), Isabel folds herself into his embrace. His arms don't tremble. His breaths don't rattle. His heartbeat is steady.

He's getting better.

Swallowing back her relieved tears, Isabel burrows her nose into the hollow of his throat and breathes deep. "I love you," she whispers.

"And I love you," he replies.

Easy. Simple. Assured.

(Nothing at all like that No one can ever, ever love me! that still rings in her ears.)

"What is the theme for a second anniversary?" she asks to distract him from the thrumming of her own heart, beating like the churning of rapids in her throat.

"Cotton," he replies. "And the flower is lilies-of-the-valley."

"The flower that looks like little bells," she says, thinking of the name he's called her (once on the street and then multiple times tossing and turning in his sleep).

"White for purity and innocence," he says.

"And white cotton?" Isabel thinks that by the second year of marriage, the white and innocent theme should be well and truly done away with. But then, what does she know? It'll still work great for her and her husband.

(Or would it? What else has she forgotten?)

"I've never woven cotton," he muses. "But I'm sure I could make something of it."

Isabel thinks of the spinning wheel she knows he keeps in the basement, and the one in the backroom of his shop, and wonders why she never considered before that her husband has some practical skills.

"I'll think of something good too," she promises. "I won't forget this time."

(She hopes she won't anyway. Of course, she's forgotten nearly half a year of her life; should she really be making promises?)

But her husband only squeezes her tightly against himself and says, "I know you won't."

Her curiosity begs her to pester him with all her questions (exactly how much time has she forgotten? did she meet him at the cabin as she promised? have they exchanged more than just kisses? when did he forgive her for marrying him under less-than-innocent pretenses?), but Isabel tightens her mouth over them all. Cradled close in his arms, his breath whispering over her brow, their whispers close and safe between them, Isabel feels immeasurably close to her husband. She doesn't want to risk that by reminding him of everything she's forgotten.

"You turned the lamp off," he says out of nowhere.

Isabel frowns and opens her eyes. "Oh. I did. Is that okay?"

He's silent a long moment. "I thought you liked sleeping with a light on."

"I do, usually," she says, slowly. "But…I don't know. I feel safe now. With you here, I guess I don't need the lamp."

His lips press close into her hair, and she wonders if it counts as a kiss (it blazes through her with all the power of one).

For the first time since Isabel woke in the woods, her husband sleeps without nightmares. She sleeps soundly, warm and cozy between the blankets with him, and only wakes as the morning sunlight brushes heated fingers over her cheeks. When she rouses herself enough to prop herself on an elbow and make sure her husband's still okay (still alive), she finds him already awake and staring at her as if he believes he might be dreaming.

(It's a very nice thing to wake up to.)

"Good morning," she says. "How are you?"

"Good." He clears his throat and repeats himself. "Good. I think I might be up to a shower."

It's nerve-wracking, letting him go, but she's encouraged by the way he doesn't waver at all as he heads into the bathroom. The sound of the shower turning on reassures her, and Isabel brushes her hair and picks out an outfit, one ear cocked toward the bathroom (one sign of distress, of pain, and she can be there in an instant).

Her breath catches in her throat at the sight of him when he comes back into the bedroom. Clean and dressed in a clean set of pajamas, his robe hanging loosely around him, he nonetheless looks good. There's color in his cheeks and a spark in his eyes, and his cane appears once more to be little other than an affectation rather than the only thing keeping him upright.

"You're so beautiful," she breathes out, blushing but sincere.

Her husband rolls his eyes and straightens his shirt in a self-conscious gesture that tugs at something deep inside her. "Just because I don't look like death warmed over doesn't mean you should get too carried away," he mutters.

Isabel drifts closer to him, eager to touch his hand and make sure he isn't trembling (isn't hiding how much he needs her support). "I mean it," she says, and something in her tone has him caught by the force of her gaze.

"You're beautiful," he returns.

"I'm glad I didn't get dressed," she says with a teasing grin. "It's to be a pajamas picnic, then?"

His own cheeks darken as he drops his eyes. "These were the only clean clothes in the bathroom. I can change, though—"

"No!" Isabel plucks at his sleeve. "I like it. I like that I'm the only one you let see you like this."

He blinks, and then he draws a knuckle down her cheek in a feather-soft touch. "I love you," he says.

Isabel flings her arms around him and hugs him tightly before letting go and flying into the bathroom. "Just let me brush my teeth really quick," she says, breathless and impatient. "I'll be out in a minute. Don't go anywhere!"

His low chuckle flies straight to the center of her belly, and Isabel has to take a deep, steadying breath once there's a door between them.

A few moments later, they descend the stairs together. Isabel loves the look of them, her in her cream nightgown and bare legs flashing between her midnight blue robe, him with his navy pajamas dark under his scarlet robe—her arm looped through his elbow, his head tilted down toward her. She's alert for any sign of frailty from him, but he doesn't lean any of his weight on her and they make good time to the kitchen, where together, they cut fruit, dish out cream and honey, toast bagels, and brew tea with lemon and sugar cubes.

Isabel carries the laden basket (even recovering, her husband is a showman at heart and pulled out the wicker basket with such a flourish she couldn't hold in her laughter) to their library, and Mr. Gold holds the door open for her. He lights the fire while she fluffs out a few blankets in front of the hearth, and together, they unpack the food and stir their respective cups of tea.

"I remember the first time I saw you," he says, nudging the plate of cut strawberries her way. "You took me completely aback. Just…you. I didn't even realize how beautiful you were until a bit later because at that first sight, I was struck simply by your existence. Your voice—that accent I could never forget. The way you find it so easy to reach out and touch me."

"It'd be harder to deny the temptation," she teases, and runs her hand down his face, his shoulder, his arm, to whisper over his hand.

His smile is soft and slow and so disarmingly sincere that Isabel feels her heart swell. "I always knew it would be better for you if I kept my distance, but…I couldn't. I excused it and justified myself—I'm going at doing that. But the truth was…I didn't want to leave your presence."

"I'm glad," she says. Scooting closer to him on the blanket, she leans her shoulder against his. "I don't think I'll ever understand what's so surprising about me—I'm just an ordinary person—but I'm so glad that you look."

"You could never be ordinary," he says. "Trust me. I'm much older than I look and have met more people than you can imagine—and you are the most fantastical, the most unreal, of them all. I'm always having to check to make sure I haven't just dreamed you up."

Isabel thinks of the way he stares, every time she touches him, the way he leans into whatever touch she offers, and thinks there is something as heartbreaking as there is beautiful about knowing why he craves her tactile reassurance.

"Sweetheart," she says. Just that. Her voice has dried up and floated away like dandelion seeds in a breeze.

Her husband meets her gaze, his eyes so dark, so focused, that it takes her breath away. "I love you," he says. "Not right away, but so much sooner than I could admit."

"I love you too," she says. "I'll never stop loving you."

His smile turns mischievous. "Yes, let's not talk about when you began to love me."

It's meant to make her smile (and Isabel does quirk her lips for his sake), but the reminder hurts. She hates that she married him for all the wrong reasons. She hates that he will never trust wholly and completely in her love because of how their courtship started.

"You know what I think?" she says. She sets her teacup aside, then takes his (chipped and familiar) from him and also sets it safely on the end table. "I think there were much easier ways of being a hero than to join my life with that of the most feared man in town. I think there were a dozen ways I could have investigated you that would have been quicker than sharing your bed for a year. I think…" She bites her lip (nervous and not quite able to pinpoint why). "I think that for me, love is a mystery to be uncovered and you are the greatest mystery I could ever find, with so many layers that I could never grow bored or disenchanted. I think I might be as good at lying to myself as you are."

They're sitting nearly identical to the way they did before, in her shop, on another picnic, with the taste of brownies heavy in her mouth. She faces him, her knees bent against his hip, his back against the couch, and he stares. He stares as if it's the first time he's seeing her all over again.

This time, it's strawberries and chai tea that flavors her mouth. It's him that bends toward her, inclining his whole body in her direction. It's sunlight that pours in through the open curtains to bathe them in light. It's nervousness rather than excitement that twists in her stomach as she tips her face up to brush her lips against his.

(She remembers a kiss on Main Street. A brush of chapped lips over his sweaty brow. Bae's form falling back before her husband's violent convulsions.)

"Are you sure?" her husband asks.

(She thinks of the endless frames of pictures, those photos of a laughing, loving family. She thinks of the way he says that name, Belle, so awed and reverent and amazed. She thinks of the hole in her mind and the existence of magic and the fact that she carried a tiny glass jar of True Love in her pocket, gifted to her by this man.)

"Yes," she says, and she kisses him.

A warm pulse surges outward around them, bathing her in a heated brilliance that has her pressing closer to Rumplestiltskin's lean body. He tries to pull back, a name torn from his throat, but Belle chases his lips. She wraps her arms tighter around him, and then, when that isn't close enough, climbs into his lap and wraps her legs around his waist too. His full-body shudder, his palm pressed against the small of her back to fuse her hips to his (his hands clumsy and dropping something that clatters against the floor), is answer enough.

He's Rumplestiltskin (the Dark One, the Deal-Maker, a father) and she's Belle, and yet, simultaneously, he's Mr. Gold (sweetheart and husband and shadowy landlord) and she's Isabel, and between all the memories poured back inside her, she can't quite remember why she thought there'd be any large distinction between the two.

Either way, he loves her (with every awed glance, every tentative touch, every grand gesture) and she loves him (loves the way he makes her brave, makes her a hero, makes her safe), and they chose each other (keep choosing each other).

And Bae is safe.

Storybrooke is safe.

And Rumple nearly died.

This, finally, is what succeeds in tearing her lips from his.

Belle shudders and tries not to sob as she traces the lines of his beloved face.

"Belle," he whispers.

"You almost died!" she cries. "You were hurt—and he was going to—and if Bae hadn't been there—you could have died!"

The force of her colliding with him, pulling him into her (wishing she could keep him safe inside the confines of her own breastbone and heart), has him rocking back against the couch, but his arms enfold her completely. His breaths feather so steadily along her temple.

"Shh. I'm here. Beautiful Belle. It's all right."

"You…" She kisses him, a devouring kiss that she thinks is caught somewhere between trying to immerse herself wholly in him and pull him forever into her. One arm stays close around her waist, steadying her, but with the other, he cups her cheek and tilts her head, her curls spilling over his fingers. Belle whimpers and slides her fingers back through his hair.

All this, she could have lost.

So much, she had forgotten.

"I love you," she breathes into his mouth, and swallows the choked noise he makes in response. "I love you, Rumplestiltskin."

"Belle!" he gasps, and suddenly, he rolls them, lowering her down to the blankets, his hand cushioning her head, his weight a heated comfort atop her as he props himself up so close his lips meld with hers.

She murmurs his name, over and over again, mesmerized by the way he instinctively rocks closer with each utterance.

(Son, Pan called him, derisive and scornful but truthful too. Coward, Milah named him as she wished him dead. Useless, Cora told him before leaving him. Did any of them use his name at all? Is she really the only one who treasures him as he deserves?)

"Belle, Belle, wait, my darling Belle, I have to…"

Very nearly whining at his sudden distance from her, Belle lifts her head, seeking his mouth, but he cups her head in between his large hands and meets her eyes, his own piercing while she feels her own sight dazed.

"Belle," he says again. "About Milah… I should have told you—"

"You loved her," Belle says. This argument seems a million years ago, but she knows it's important (he's important, him and the doubts that will fester in the back of his mind if she doesn't nip this here and now). "And you killed her."

He flinches. But when he moves as if to pull himself off her, Belle loops her leg over his left thigh and winds her arms around his neck.

"She left Bae," he whispers. "She forgot him."

And that's it. Really, it's so simple. So uncomplicated. Isabel just finished telling her husband how layered and complex he is, but this, Belle thinks, is the root at the heart of it all.

His son.

His family.

His loved ones.

Everything he does now, every cruel decision, every desperate crime—all of it can be traced back to this alone.

(His father traded him away for power, and left him, and forgot him, and only came back to kill him, and Belle has always considered herself an idealist, a hero, a good person, but she'd shoot him a thousand times more just to keep Rumple from ever looking as hurt and as resigned as he did while staring at Pan.)

"I would never hurt you, Belle," Rumple says, the words spilling from him quickly. "You saved Bae. You risked everything to save him. You're the reason he's still in my life. But more than that…I love you. I would never hurt—"

"I know," she says, and strokes her hand soothingly through his hair. "I know, Rumple. And you would never choose Isabel over me either, would you?"

His face creases in confusion. "How can I choose between the same person? I love you."

Belle's smile breaks free, so brilliant that she sees Rumple blink against the shine of it. "I'm not afraid of you," she promises. "Sometimes, I think I'm afraid of how much I'm willing to give up for you. But I've never been afraid of you. Not once."

"Belle…" Twisting one of her curls around his index finger, he devotes his attention to stroking its silkiness, nervous fidgeting as recognizable as it is endearing. "Do you think…you could stop running away?"

Her breath catches in her throat. "Do you think that's what I did to turn into Isabel? You think I crossed the town line on purpose?"

"I think you like to test yourself," he says tentatively. "Or prove yourself. And I think…I think sometimes it's easier for you to do it alone. But I…"

"You're afraid of the people you love leaving you," she says, and at his flinch, drops a kiss to his cheek. "Rumple, when I leave…it's not you leaving. I leave because I'm afraid of you seeing me fail or question or just get scared. I don't ever want to see you disappointed in me."

"Belle…" He huffs a laugh and drops his brow atop hers. "That would never happen. You surprise me and startle me and amaze me. But you have never once disappointed me."

"And I may leave the room—or the house—for a little bit, but I will never leave you, Rumple."

He doesn't quite believe her yet. But he wants to. He's trying to. And if he can believe in her…then she can believe in herself too.

"Forever?" he asks.

She smiles. "Forever."

His lips cover hers, and Belle pulls him close (grateful she insisted on pajamas rather than a full suit that would take far too long to strip him of), close, then closer, until there's nothing between them at all.

Well. Nothing aside from hundreds of years of his past. Of shadowed memories and hidden scars. Her own insecurities and covered fears.

But those are only stepping stones on their journey, she's suddenly sure, not the end of their story.

True love is worth fighting for, and Belle? Well, Belle's a fighter who doesn't know how to give up. She'll fight for Rumplestiltskin. She'll never stop fighting for him.

And for the first time, she's absolutely sure that he'll fight for her too.

---

They're expecting him at Granny's. Rumplestiltskin spares a wishful thought for a booth saved for him by his son, by his wife, before shaking his head (far more likely they'll simply spare a look toward the door every now and then) and refocusing his thoughts. The dagger lays on his worktable in front of him, and for all that Rumplestiltskin hates the sight of it, he can't get enough of staring at it.

It's blank.

All traces of his name, seared there by blood and evil centuries ago, have disappeared, leaving only a silver surface, etched along the edges with dark runes.

It's as impossible as it is confusing.

True Love's Kiss can break any curse.

No. No, not this curse, darkest and wickedest of all. Not his heart, turned black as coal. Although…

With a shaking hand, Rumplestiltskin pulls his heart from his chest, ignoring the flash of agony, and then stares at its gleaming surface—pink and red with mere hints of wispy shadows hidden in the center.

Impossible. The true shock of it is doubled when he replaces his heart in his chest, bringing emotions flaring back into being.

Rumplestiltskin has done his level best not to think of that day a week ago, when he faced his father and nearly died in the doing of it. When his undoing came due and he somehow (through the Heart of the Truest Believer) survived it.

But an undoing is more than just pain. More than his greatest nightmare appearing to taunt him with his pathetic uselessness. More than being weakened and tortured in public.

An undoing is…well, an unraveling.

Like the kind that had nearly unmanned him completely when his son kissed his brow (when proof that Bae still loves him erupted to wash over the whole town). And it was then that he was overtaken by what he thought to be his returned magic. It was then that he was hit with every feeling of mortality. It was then that he began being haunted by nightmares of his darkest acts, grisly and powerful enough to wake him screaming time after time.

It was then that he realized he couldn't touch his magic.

"No," he says aloud, needing the extra assurance. "That was because of Pan's taint. Because of the curse rebounding back toward me."

But then…why hadn't Bae's acceptance broken down the last barrier between him and the magic? He'd improved, yes, but he still hadn't been able to touch the magic. He hadn't been able to do that until…

Suddenly panicked, Rumplestiltskin flicks his wrist. His chipped teacup materializes in the palm of his hand, prompting him to sag in relief. It's still there, his magic. The dagger is simply blank.

As blank as it has been since springing back into reality at the press of Belle's lips to his. And he's been able to do magic since…well, since that morning, in fact. Belle's nightgown had caught on something, and he'd been so impatient, so desperate for her, that he'd snapped his fingers and transformed it into a white lily-of-the-valley. It'd made her laugh until he bent his head to explore the newly bare skin and her laugh had turned into a keening sigh instead.

Rumplestiltskin shakes himself free of the pleasurable memory. The point is, he still has his magic. Which means the blank blade of the dagger has to have a different explanation than the obvious one.

Or maybe he just wants there to be a different explanation.

Because the truth is…the truth is, it all seems ridiculously simple.

A wooden boy led his son here. An immortal boy peeled Rumplestiltskin into a thousand evaporating pieces. A boy with a Truest Believer's Heart believed that a kiss could break any and all curses. And his boy kissed his forehead—an act of love (of belief?) so powerful that it instantly cleansed the town of any hint of Neverland.

And broke the Dark One's curse.

That's why the magic rebounding back inside him nearly incinerated him. That's why he took so long to heal (mortals are so much more fragile, more breakable, than the Dark One).

And that's why, until his second True Love Kiss (until Isabel kissed him knowing she would be subsumed beneath Belle), he couldn't access his magic.

What did he tell Emma? Magic is emotion—and what emotion could be stronger than True Love?

His undoing.

"Papa!" The cry sounds at the same instant as the bell over the door, and Rumplestiltskin has time to do no more than throw his pocket square over the dagger before Bae's pushing through the curtain into the backroom. "Papa, we've been waiting for you. We can't make the toasts until you're there."

Rumplestiltskin blinks at him.

His son. His son who loves him. Who told him it's okay if he's the Dark One forever.

His son, who broke his curse (without killing him, without any bloodshed at all).

"Bae," he whispers.

Bae tilts his head. "What's wrong? I thought you were all better."

"I…I am." He forces a smile and rounds the worktable.

"Maybe. But you're obsessing about something."

"I'm not. Didn't you say we needed to—"

Before Rumplestiltskin can do more than blurt his name, Bae dances round him and yanks the scrap of silk off of the dagger.

"What are you doing with—" Bae's jaw drops before he can finish the angry question. "Papa…" he breathes. "Is this… What does this mean?"

His eyes are focused, blazing with intensity, and Rumplestiltskin can't hold them. He ducks his head and looks away.

"I'm not the Dark One anymore," he admits.

The silence stretches. Rumplestiltskin thinks that if his son had cheered, it would have hurt, but he's not so sure this dead quiet isn't worse.

"I don't understand," Bae finally says.

"It's quite simple," he says with a flick of his fingers (he still can't look directly at him). "Your kiss was one of True Love. True Love's kiss can break any curse. Ergo…the curse was broken."

"But you said—"

"I didn't realize. Not until I saw the dagger."

His son inches closer to him, slowly, as if he thinks his father has turned into a wild beast (as if a wild beast is scarier than the Dark One). "How do you feel?"

"I'm fine."

"Papa," he says with a warning tone.

Rumplestiltskin hunches his shoulders. "Well, I did tell you that I knew my undoing was fated to come."

Bae winces, a reaction pointed enough that Rumplestiltskin notices it even out of the corner of his eye. "So…you're upset."

"I'm not upset."

"You wish I didn't kiss you."

Rumplestiltskin jerks his head up, his eyes clashing with Bae's. "Son, this isn't your fault. I would never be upset with you."

"But you hate the idea of being powerless." His flashing eyes dare Rumplestiltskin to deny this (the truth they both know so intimately). "You let go of my hand over a portal to keep this power. And now…what? You're just 'fine.'"

"You're alive," Rumplestiltskin says in a small voice. "You're here. Bae, anything is a small price compared to that."

Bae's eyes tighten. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you did take it just to save me too, didn't you?"

His cowardice begs him not to say anything, but Rumplestiltskin thinks that maybe (in this world where his son still loves him and Belle is his wife), he can be a bit braver than that.

"I still have magic," he makes himself admit.

A sharp intake of breath is all the reaction Bae betrays.

"Nearly everyone from our world has the potential for some bit of magic," he continues (it's easier to slip into a lecturing tone than to watch his son turn once more cold on him). "Small things, mostly, like Snow White being able to speak with birds or Geppetto being able to carve life from enchanted wood. I think…I think after so many decades immersed in magic, it simply became a part of me. I'll never be as powerful as I was, but I…I'm not weak either."

"And is it dark magic?" his son asks. "Because there's a difference, isn't there?"

"I… It depends. So far, everything I've done has been motivated by love for you and Belle."

"So not dark."

"No. But we both know what kind of man I am." Rumplestiltskin swallows. "It would be foolish to assume I'll never be motivated by anger or jealousy or…"

"Or fear," Bae says for him (he knows his father so well, doesn't he?).

"Bae…" he blurts. He has no idea what he means to say (to beg), but his son is there, instantly, sweeping him up in arms so much stronger than a spinner's ever were—the movement so sudden that Rumplestiltskin at first flinches, thinking it's an attack, and only gradually realizes that Bae is hugging him.

"Papa," he says. "I know you're probably mad, but I'm so glad you're free."

"Free?" Despite his confusion, he drops his cane to hug Bae close (who knows when he'll get another opportunity).

"That's all I wanted for you—to be free of that burden."

Life is such a burden, Zoso told him, breathing out his last, bloody moment on this earth. Rumplestiltskin understands but has never felt the same (not with Bae as his goal, his purpose, his talisman, his ever-fixed point).

"I'm not mad," he finally says, and drops a stealthy kiss to his son's dark hair. "It'll be an adjustment, yes, but… I don't want to be someone you hate."

"I never hated you!" Bae says fiercely, stepping back. At Rumplestiltskin's look, he flushes. "Fine. Most of the time, I didn't hate you. I hated the Dark One that lived inside you. I just…I want you to be happy. You remember how it used to be between us, don't you? I…I always thought you were my best friend as well as my papa. And I know I was just a kid, but I thought you felt the same way."

"I did," he says hastily. "I do."

Bae's smile is tentative, almost shy. "I always knew you'd do anything for me. Even after Mom left, I never had nightmares of you leaving. I never doubted that you'd stay with me."

"Oh, Bae." This time, it's him who stumbles forward. But Bae doesn't flinch away, doesn't step aside. He accepts the hug and squeezes his shoulder once, twice.

"Okay," his son says, though, when he grows uncomfortable. "I wasn't lying about them holding the toasts for you. You're the hero of the hour, remember?"

Rumplestiltskin's brow furrows. "What are you talking about?"

"The party at Granny's? The dinner we were all invited to? The celebration that, hey, we're not dead and the town's intact? Any of this ringing a bell?"

"Of course I know about the dinner. Belle was invited and told me you wanted me there."

Bae rolls his eyes. "Me and everyone else. Come on, Papa, you saved us all from Peter Pan."

"I didn't—"

"He was making trees grow up through buildings."

"You faced him too—"

"Probably would have made this place look like Neverland." Bae shudders. "Not a look I'd recommend."

"Belle's the one who shot him—"

"There was a dark stormcloud turning mid-afternoon into nighttime. Some people were trying to blame you, but don't worry, Emma and I set them straight."

"It was Regina who trapped him, really, her and the puppet boy—"

"Really, Papa? You know his name is August."

It's only Bae turning and locking the shop door behind him (Rumplestiltskin was sure to give him keys to any and everywhere he might need to go for safety, or really, in his most treasured of hopes, just to see his papa, at that first dinner Belle had arranged for them both) that makes him realize his boy has somehow maneuvered him out of the pawnshop and toward Granny's. He sets off at a slow walk that complements Rumplestiltskin's limping pace perfectly, his hands in his pockets as he ambles along the street, his shoulder brushing his papa's every other step or so.

For a while, Rumplestiltskin just enjoys the moment. He's in the same world as his son, the same space, the same time, and his son wants him here.

(It's True Love. Reciprocated. Pure. Whole.)

It's Bae who breaks the stillness first. "What are you going to do with the dagger?"

Taking a deep breath, Rumplestiltskin says, "I think…maybe you should take it." Before Bae can do more than make a face and draw a breath with all his arguments, he continues. "I think you should take it over the town line and bury it about twenty feet underground."

It's hard, sometimes, seeing the boy he loved and imagined and missed for so long in this grown man. But there, in that bright grin, it's easy to see his precious, mischievous son, so eager to find fun and so ready to set it aside when his father needed help.

"I can do that," he promises. "Tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

The lights of the diner come into view. A knot of tension settles low in Rumplestiltskin's belly when he sees how crowded it is inside. The last time he saw most of those people, he was strung up before them like a lamb for slaughter, all his power and menace and reputation shattered into meaningless shards.

"Son," he says. "You didn't mean it, did you? About everyone waiting for me? I had nothing to do with Pan's—"

"Papa. You're a hero." Bae stops and turns to face him. "I know you've never gotten a hero's welcome before, but Emma's been telling everyone about how you saved all of us from Pan and his goons. You deserve this."

Bile crawls up his throat. His boy doesn't know, for all his cynicism and distrust—he has no idea just how many horrible things Rumplestiltskin has done. He and Belle look at him and see the person they want him to be, and how can he do anything but fail them? Before, with the curse, at least he had competence and power on his side. Now…now, he's nothing more than a lame spinner (a coward) playing dress-up and acting out a part.

"It's going to be fine, Papa," Bae says. He slings his arm over Rumplestiltskin's shoulders, careful not to overbalance him, and nudges them back into a walk. "Just remember something, okay?"

"What's that?"

"I'm proud of you."

His heart leaps—and then his son pushes the glass doors open, and he half-shoves, half-nudges Rumplestiltskin into the press of people, all turning to look at him, a few cheering, most staring confusedly (he doesn't blame them; he feels the same).

"Rumple!" The sight of Belle emerging from the press, hands outstretched to take his, is so welcome a sight that Rumplestiltskin very nearly breaks down into tears. Carefully, he takes her right hand and pulls her into his side.

"Don't leave me," he whispers in her ear. She laughs as if she thinks he's joking, but he can't recall a time he's been more serious.

Sandwiched between his son and his wife, Rumplestiltskin makes his way through the crowd, doing his best not to flinch at Charming's backslap, Snow's attempted hug (he ducks back against Belle so quickly, she ends up mainly hugging Belle), Archie's handshake, the dwarfs' en masse approach, until he finally makes it to a back booth where Emma gestures him into a seat.

"I have a scotch waiting for you," she says. "Figured you'd hate this as much as I do."

"A valiant start to making up for failing to uphold your end of our deal," he snarks (grateful in a way he'll never put into words that she only rolls her eyes at him).

"Yeah, yeah. I'd say it all turned out okay in the end, right?"

Rumplestiltskin slides into the booth, tugging Belle in after him (hopefully she'll forgive him for using her as a buffer between him and the rest of this madhouse), and biting back a pleased smile to see Bae sitting across from him. As soon as Emma settles next to him, his son wraps his arm around her shoulders and drops a quick, almost clumsy kiss to the side of her head (it calls up memories of his son's abrupt, awkward hugs, running embraces, sloppy kisses, in a tiny hut that's the most home he ever knew until Isabel and Belle). Emma blushes but leans into his son's side anyway.

"Yeah," Rumplestiltskin finds himself saying. "I suppose it did."

"Oh." Emma reaches under the table for a bag. "I've been meaning to get this back to you."

The sight of his son's shawl does make tears prick at his eyes. He blinks them back, fiercely, and tucks the bag safely in his lap, under the table. "Thank you."

"Thank you," Emma says. "We make a good team, I guess. It'd just be nice if, next time, you actually let me in on a bit more of the plan."

"You were in on as much of it as I could be sure of," he replies, hoping she doesn't press.

Henry runs over, his wide smile a mirror image of Bae's (or Bae's as it used to be), and Bae and Emma's attention are instantly captured.

"You okay?" Belle asks him softly.

With one hand buried in the shawl in his lap and the other twined in hers, he tries to appear composed rather than overwhelmed. "There's something I have to tell you," he says. "Later. When we're home." At her questioning look, he says, "It's good news. A good thing."

Her soft smile is so pretty that he almost leans into kiss her. Thankfully (for the sake of what's left of his reputation), Henry interrupts when he blurts, "I'm so glad you're not dead, Grandpa! It's okay if I call you Grandpa, isn't it?"

Something twists in his chest, a painful, poignant something just behind his breastbone. "You can call me whatever you like," he says.

"Cool!" Henry grins even wider, then bounces away. Unfortunately, this seems to be invitation for others to come up to the table.

Rumplestiltskin stays quiet, mostly letting the others speak for him. August is the first who looks past Emma and Neal. His expression screams of reluctance (of fear), but in a tight voice, he says, "I know you don't want any thanks from me, but you do have it. One of those trees shot up right through Papa's workshop. If it hadn't stopped when it did, it would have torn through him."

His skin feels tight, too small, constrained, as if he's in someone else's place, pretending to a part that ill suits him. "You should thank Belle or Emma, or even yourself and Regina. I didn't do anything."

August's lips quirk upward a bit crookedly. He still looks scared, but he's trying to ignore it (and for the first time, Rumplestiltskin wonders if he doesn't dislike the puppet so much precisely because they're too similar). "I've already thanked them. I wish you'd let me thank you for not leaving me wood."

"My son likes you," he snarks.

Though his brow creases, August only nods. "I'll let you be."

The weight of Belle's gaze on him has Rumplestiltskin sighing and saying, "Mr. Booth?"

Bae, Emma, and August all stare at him in surprise (really, the part might be easier to play than he thought if something this small takes them so aback).

"You're welcome," he says.

Two words, and very (almost) easily said, yet they make the puppet…the man inordinately happy.

Ruby brings over plates of hamburgers and fries (Belle whispers to her and then to Granny, and a few moments later, some extra pickles find their way to his place on a small platter). Bae eats his own food, then swipes fries from his papa's plate when Emma smacks his hand for trying for some of hers. Rumplestiltskin unobtrusively scoots the plate closer to his son (it's been a long time since lean winter nights and empty larders, but the habit persists). As soon as her iced tea is gone, Belle leans her head on Rumplestiltskin's shoulder, a warm weight made both heavier and lighter by the implicit trust she shows him.

To Rumplestiltskin's horror, Bae wasn't lying about the toasts. It takes only two of them, one by Charming and the other by Marco, for Rumplestiltskin to worm his way out of the booth and head into the hallway leading to the restrooms. He leans against the wall in the dubious privacy and tries to suck in a deep breath.

"Tell me about it," Regina says.

His eyes pop open to see her emerging from the ladies room.

"It's a bit overwhelming, isn't it?" she asks. "They were giving me the treatment before you got here."

"It's…different," he allows. (And he didn't do anything except hang from magical restraints and slowly be bled dry of his magic.)

"Still…Henry called me a hero." There's a wistfulness to her voice, a shine to her eyes, he would have teased her for even just a few months ago.

"A real milestone," he says, but his tone doesn't have the snark he intended it to.

Regina bumps her shoulder against his. "Come on. Admit it. It's not all bad having your kid look at you like you could do anything."

"I can do anything," he says lowly. "That's why he was so afraid of me."

"Okay." She rolls her eyes. "But you chose to face the real monster here—some teenage boy with a maturity problem."

"And you trapped him forever." Rumplestiltskin gives her an approving nod. "Guess you can become the parent Henry deserves."

She blinks, her whole face transformed into one closer to that young girl who called on him without knowing how to pronounce his name.

Rumplestiltskin figures that's more than enough bonding for the day and uses her moment of silence to slip away. Belle finds him before he can quite make it through the exit.

"You aren't abandoning me here, are you?" she asks with a sly smile.

"You've caught me."

"If you were going to escape, you should have invited me," she says. "Lucky for you, I anticipated your move." She holds up the bag with Bae's shawl as proof. "I didn't think you'd want to leave this behind."

He can't help himself then. Since before the moment he arrived, he's wanted to sneak off to somewhere quiet and secret with just her (well, and Bae too, if he wants to come). At this proof that she's always looking out for him, he steps forward, ducks his head, and kisses her.

"Do you want to escape with me?" he murmurs against her lips.

"You'll miss all the people extolling your virtues," she says, tipping up on her toes to catch his lips for another kiss he grants more than eagerly.

"I don't have many. They've probably finished already."

"Rumple!" she half-snorts, half-laughs, and he takes advantage of her distraction to pull Bae's shawl from the bag, wrap it around her shoulders in lieu of her coat, and then tug her after him out the backdoor. They emerge into a dark alley, which ordinarily would put him off, but Belle's fingers curling close around his, tickling his palm, has him pushing her back against the wall and kissing her as if he hasn't seen her in ages. The way she twines her arms around him and pets his hair assures him she doesn't mind.

"Let's go home," he pants into her mouth.

"Yes," she says, but then kisses him so long, so deep, that he forgets what they were planning in favor of pressing the length of his body against hers so he can feel every curve, every shiver, every gasp.

"Bae will come looking for us," she warns after a long (but not long enough) moment, and laughing, hand in hand, they come as close to a run as they can achieve with his cane and her heels.

"So," she says when they've put a corner and a couple blocks between them and the diner (it takes longer than usual seeing as it's an utter necessity that he keep pausing in dark spots to kiss her again). "What's the good news?"

His laughing lust dies away. He still clings to her hand, but now it's more because he dreads the moment she lets go than because he can't bear to not be touching her.

"I'm not the Dark One anymore."

It's a graceless confession, dumped there between them as if he took a child and dropped it on its head in front of her.

Belle's brow furrows. "I know."

He gapes at her. "What?"

"I saw the dagger," she says. "It was lying on the floor beside us for hours. Kind of hard not to tell that your name was gone."

She's not pulling away. Her hand is still tucked close in his. Her steps are still synchronized to his.

"You…you know."

"It was Bae's kiss, wasn't it? You took the curse for him, and he broke it for you."

"I love you." He sucks his lips in. Too late. The admission is out there, desperate, sloppy (he thinks he knows where Bae gets his clumsy affection from).

"I love you too," Belle says easily, and this time it's her who presses him against a nearby wall and kisses him. He's a beat slow, just a touch behind, and she pulls back to look at him questioningly.

"I…I'm nothing now," he tells her (it should go without saying, but Belle often misses the point where he's concerned). "The riches I have here, the power…it could all slip away."

"I won't," she says simply.

(He thinks of Milah, unable to stand a deserter for a husband. Of Cora, who thought he was too weak to fully commit to the darkness.)

"You won't," he repeats.

(She stayed when she thought him a shady pawnbroker. She stayed when she knew his real identity. She stayed when he was dying. She stays and stays and stays and he realizes that he can barely picture Milah or Cora anymore. They have faded in the wake of Belle's brilliance.)

"If I lose all the money," he says, his hand tracing the shape of her face.

"I'll stay."

"If no one's ever scared of me again…"

"I'll learn to be the scary one," she teases.

"If I'm nothing but a coward," he rasps.

Her whole face softens. She kisses his cheek. His brow. His eyelids. His mouth. "I'd love you for whatever courage you find in the midst of your fear."

He stills her face, cupping it between his hands, and slants his mouth over hers. One of her hands slips beneath his suit coat to curve along his hip, warm through the thin layer of his shirt, and Rumplestiltskin shivers and pulls her closer against him.

"I love you," he says again. "I will never forget you. You're everything to me."

Her eyes shine with reflected tears when she stares up at him, all awe and disbelief and amazement (it always astounds him, the reminder that this amazing, wonderful princess could ever think herself mundane and forgettable).

"Home," she says suddenly. "We really need to get home."

His mouth widens in the biggest smile he thinks he's ever shown, and he hauls her close to kiss her, searching out all the well-known secrets of her mouth, before they once more race for home.

They tumble through the door together. It's dark inside (like the night he came inside for the first time as Rumplestiltskin rather than Mr. Gold), but only until she flicks on a lamp. The stairs are high (as intimidating as when she helped him up through the blur of his returned memories and the reminder of his gaping loss), but she supports him, laughing and smiling and kissing every inch of skin she bares as she unbuttons his shirt. The bedroom smells of them both (of tea and her makeup and his shoe polish) and when they drop onto the bed together, he can't help but think of that first night, when he stood in the middle of the room holding a pillow and trying to make himself leave. He hadn't. He couldn't. She'd already drawn him in. Instead, he'd laid beside her, and held her close, and pretended he didn't notice how much he wanted this to be forever.

And now it is.

"To love and to cherish," he murmurs against her collarbone, her breast, her stomach.

She cradles his head close to her warm skin. "Thus do I pledge myself to you," she gasps.

"You're mine," he breathes. His. Whether he's the Dark One or a spinner, Mr. Gold or a father who forgot to hold on. She loves him. She chooses him. She's his.

"And you're mine," she reminds him, tugging him back up to her and rolling until her weight is draped over him, her hair encasing them in a dark cocoon.

This is his undoing, he thinks. This. The undoing of the lonely, weak man all alone and abandoned and forgotten. The undoing of the Dark One, motivated by a lonesome goal, trapped in his purpose with no way out save forward. The undoing of him as an island alone, set apart, forever on the outside.

Across town, his son sits with the woman he loves and the boy he adores, a family—and one Rumplestiltskin is a part of.

Here, in his home, in his bed (their home, their bed), his wife tucks herself perfectly over him and welcomes him into the place (the heart) he belongs most of all.

All those contingency plans he made. The scheming and the plotting and the fearing. All of it, and here he is, loved and chosen and safe.

"Belle," he breathes, marrying his lips to hers.

And for the first time in Rumplestiltskin's life, he's not afraid.

---

The End