It didn't escape his notice that Belle was once even more quiet on the way back to the shop. It wasn't that he didn't want to know what was going on in her head or why she was behaving the way she was that he didn't engage. It wasn't even the fact that he didn't have any ideas for getting her to admit to him what was on her mind. It was only the fact that his own mind was a flurry of thoughts and ideas that belonged to both himself and the Dark Ones. The golden dust that now sat in a vial in his pocket had each and every one of them excited. Without the threat of being pulled into the urn itself, the magic that it presented for them, the applications were potentially boundless! They were also, of course, quite threatening for even him, but that was always why he preferred these types of things to be in his possession. It limited the chances that someone could use them against him.

First, we must find a safe way to store it, said one Dark One. If the magic is as contagious as we think, then the grains of dirt it's attached to will eventually attach to the sand within the glass.

Once it's contained, we need to make more! said another. It's only a meager amount and we need to stop it from growing out of our control. We need control. We crave the control to make more when we run low.

It'll need tested, another insisted. We never do anything half-baked. There will be limits, and we need to test them to understand them.

And then there's the hat…

And then there was the hat. And the mystery of Ingrid? What she was up to? And the dust, and the dagger, and Belle…

What had started out as a simple plan was quickly growing. If he didn't prioritize, if he didn't do his proper testing and research then things were going to begin to fall apart far more quickly than he wanted them to.

"At least we're alone this time," he commented quietly to himself as he opened the shop door to let them both inside. "Still not feeling well?"

"No," she answered quietly. It was her first word since he'd led them out of the barn. It was also an unclear answer. No, she still wasn't feeling well? Or No, she was feeling better? Given her silence he was inclined to believe the former, his heart might have even jumped a little at the prospect. It wasn't that he wanted her to be ill, but if she wanted to lay down somewhere and give him the opportunity to explore his very lengthy to-do list…

"Maybe you should lay down in the back for a bit," he suggested gently. "I can make you some tea, and-"

"I want you to hide the dagger!" she yelled suddenly, spinning around and pulling it from her bag. For the smallest of moments he needed to pause and think through her posture. The dagger was in her hand, and she'd expressed a desire? If that had been the real thing, he'd have had no choice but to take it from her and do as she wished but…he didn't think that she was expressing a command, at least not consciously. The look on her face wasn't insistent; it was desperate.

Quickly as she'd had it in her hand, she glanced down at it, her mouth gaping and her face upset as if she herself had just realized…

Most certainly not a purposeful command. If it was the dagger, its wishes would have been easy to ignore. He was fine.

"Belle?" he questioned as she dropped it back inside her bag. Figuring out what was bothering her was something on his "to-do" list. It was further down, but perhaps if he shifted his priorities a bit… "Belle, what's wrong? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine!" she nodded. "I just…I can't stand this! Keeping this with me all the time it's too much power and responsibility to keep with me all day, and what happened this morning-"

"What happened this morning happened at my own request."

It was only when she closed her eyes to shake her head that he saw the tears gathering in the corners. "It doesn't matter!" she cried. "I don't want this with me all the time. I don't want the power, and I don't ever want to be anything like Zelena, not to anyone but especially not to you!"

"You don't-"

Before he could get the words out, he felt a shiver against his back, a traditional warning that someone was just outside his property. When he turned to glance over his shoulder and out the windows, he saw a couple walking by the shop, their gazes glancing inside and then suspiciously averting quickly. It was only then he realized how loud they were shouting. His shop needed a silencing charm placed over it, there was one more thing for his to-do list, but for now, this was something easily remedied without magic.

"Can we talk in the back?" he begged, lowering his voice and hoping the look on his face might encourage her to lower hers as well. The point was made; they didn't need to shout. "Please, instead of here where someone might be able to…"

She was already nodding, already heading in the direction of the back room so that he didn't have to finish that sentence. A week ago, he'd been waiting for a conversation like this at just this time, for her to want him to hide the dagger and for them to do it together. He'd been waiting for Zelena's death to die down, and it had, thanks to the Arendelle royal family, but now that he had the hat to consider, now that he needed the real one and having a fake readily available to help proclaim his innocence could come in handy for both of them, he didn't think it wise to act on such a plan. Not now, at least. Later, after he was successfully freed from the blade, yes! But now…now he could see the benefits of having it in her possession. But this wild idea in her head that simply possessing it made her like the Wicked Witch of the West…that he wouldn't tolerate.

"You're not like Zelena," he insisted the moment he went into the back and closed the curtain behind them to give a bit of privacy from the street. "You're nothing like Zelena, I don't know where you could ever get an idea like that."

"We've both had the dagger, Rumple," she argued, her voice lower but still strained. "We've both had power over you, and I don't like it-"

"You don't!" He practically growled at himself when he realized he'd nearly shouted in reply again. He needed to calm himself now. He needed to think of something good to say instead of what was on his mind because what his heart suddenly wanted to say was the most dangerous thing in the world. "You don't, you don't have power over me, because you…"

Don't have the real dagger…

This would have been the perfect opportunity. In so many ways, it would have been the perfect opportunity: the perfect opportunity to hide the real one, the perfect opportunity to make his confession, the perfect opportunity to tell her about Zelena and begin to move forward. Hell, given the state she was in now, she'd likely throw her arms around him out of relief!

But while the opportunity was perfect, the timing was wrong. It was still too soon. Some of those confessions he hoped to make to her years into their future when they might sting but wouldn't burn. He wanted to make them after they'd been married for years after he'd been a good and faithful husband instead of one who had been lying since day one. He wanted her to be able to look back and think that he might have lied for a few weeks, but he'd been honest and good for years since then. If he didn't fix things with the hat, given the state of his heart, he wasn't even sure he'd have years ahead of them.

It was the wrong time for the perfect opportunity. So what was he to do about that?

"Belle, may I explain something to you, please?"

She nodded, and gave a small sniffle as she allowed him to move her back to the cot and sit her down. She took a deep breath all on her own, without being prompted, a sign that the moment was passing and she was trying to clear her head. Good. That was good.

He reached into her bag and pulled the dagger free, then sat down beside her. "This dagger isn't dangerous," he explained, trying to use an even tone. "When I first told you about it, I told you that the power it held was destructive…in the wrong hands. But in the right hands…your hands…it's harmless because I trust you with it. Because I see the same thing in you that Regina did when she gave it to you, which is that you wouldn't abuse the power of it. I know you wouldn't do that.

"In your hands you don't have the power, it's like it doesn't exist, because I know you won't use it. And I know you won't do that because the power you have over me is beyond this dagger. The power you possessed from the beginning before I ever gave this to you, is a power that is much stronger than anything this dagger could ever wield."

He set the metal back in her hands, and much to his great joy, she didn't even flinch. Not even as he curled her fingers over the blade so it could sit firmly in her lap.

"I understand that," she nodded, tears still swimming in her eyes. "I do, Rumple I just…I just don't like carrying it with me! What if someone steals it? Or just takes my bag and finds it inside? I'm not magical; I can't stop someone as easily as you can! I can't protect you the way you can protect me. I don't understand why we can't just hide it like we did before when we put it in the clock tower!" she exclaimed, moving it out of her lap and closer to him as if to give it over once more.

Before their honeymoon, he'd have jumped on that in a heartbeat, but now…

"Because I don't trust it anywhere else but your hands," he insisted gently, moving it back to her. "It's beyond trust. I trust that you won't let anything happen to this dagger or to me so much that I know without a doubt it's safe with you. And I trust that you won't use it so much that I know that you won't…please, Belle…just…" but she was already shaking her head, still refusing. "Just…keep it close to you for a little while longer. If it still bothers you a month from now, we'll do something about it."

A month. A month?! He could feel the itch of the Dark Ones glaring at him with that proclamation. But he'd needed something; he'd needed to give her something to look forward to, a light at the end of the tunnel. Their problem with that-his problem with that was that it put a time constraint on an already ever-evolving complicated situation. One month. One month to figure out the hat, to learn what Ingrid was doing, to separate himself from the dagger, something that hadn't been done since the fucking creation of the Dark One! One month to do what no other Dark One had ever dared but had always dreamed…what was he thinking?

"All right…" Belle agreed timidly, pulling the blade back to her chest into her possession and protection once more. Ah, yes…that was what he was thinking. "All right, one month and we'll see where we're at with it then, but Rumple…just…promise me…promise me you won't ever ask me to do what I did this morning again. Please."

This morning…when he'd suggested to the others that she use it on him to get "the truth." Well, fuck, he wanted her to keep it so that she could do just that around others.

It's just a deal, Rumpelstiltskin, Nimue whispered in his head in a bored voice. And there is a lot of wiggle room within it. Just make the deal. She, it seemed, was already done with this conversation. And given the number of tasks he had ahead of him, so was he.

So he leaned forward and caught her lips in a kiss. "That is how I know it's safest with you."

I really enjoy looking at these conversations from Rumple's point of view. I think I've said it before but I'll say it again because it can always be repeated: what makes this fiction more fascinating than some of the others is getting to see both sides of conversations like these. Belle is hiding something and thanks to Moments we can see what is going on in her head, what she's thinking, feeling guilty about, and suspects that Rumple suspects. Rumple is also hiding something, and now we can see what is going on in his head, what he's thinking, feeling guilty about, plotting, suspecting. It's fascinating to me because it's so easy to see where things start to split in their relationship. A long time ago, when we were beginning to get into season 5, I had mentioned that they had great love for each other, but in order to make their relationship healthy, it had to be razed. The foundation they start on is one of love but it's also filled with lies, so anything they try to build on top of it is doomed to come crashing down. So, in order to make their relationship healthy, it has to be torn down entirely, right to the foundation so that it could be built upon truth. When we get down to the bare bones of it, the tearing apart of their foundation in 5B and 6A it's so very painful, but the demolition really begins at the end of 4A, and so a lot of this is, in my mind, setting the dynamite to start tearing down what they've built up. Just some thoughts...

Thank you to Rsbeall12 and my unnamed guest for reviewing the previous chapters, and to all of you who are still out there reading. Let me know if any of this analogy resonates with you or if you think I'm totally crazy, talking about relationships as houses 'n such. Peace and Happy Reading!