When the marshmallows and chocolate bars ran out, Gold and Bae packed up to head back into town. "We can come back, right?" Bae asked.

Gold's smile would have been uncharacteristically broad if he weren't so worried about the choices ahead of him. "Of course," he said. "Whenever you want."

He couldn't help but imagine what it might be like, one day, for Bae to bring Henry with him. For there to be three generations of Gold men out here on the lake.

There could have been already…if only Gold hadn't been so disappointing and his own father so horrible.

Shaking the thoughts away, both of them—Malcolm and Henry, father and grandson, so different and yet so connected—as equally impossible. Pan was dead, and if Bae were to find out about Henry and attempt to form a relationship with him, he wouldn't want anything to do with his own papa, which meant it'd only ever be two Gold men at a time, father and son, out here in this cabin.

Locking the place up behind him, Gold joined his son in the car and let Bae read a couple chapters of Redwall on the drive home. The porchlight was on, a golden glow beckoning them back to cozy safety. Gold relished the sight of it even as he knew that the war inside himself wouldn't go away just because they were resuming normal routines.

Bae's sudden hug, with the front door unlocked and the keys still in Gold's hand, their packs sandwiched between them, took him completely aback. "Thanks, Papa," Bae whispered, and then, awkward and embarrassed, his son vanished upstairs.

Gold dropped his own bag so he could rub his palm over his breastbone, trying to soothe the overwhelming rush of sheer love that made it hard for him to catch his breath. For all his miserable beginnings, he'd had so many moments in life that were perfect, but he thought this one might have just been the most perfect.

And that was when he realized that he'd already made his decision. Of course he had. The struggle inside himself, this inner conflict, was nothing more than the last reverberations playing themselves out of the future where he and Bae were happy alone together with their secrets keeping them a step removed from each other.

Of course he had to tell Bae about Henry. Which meant, he supposed, that he'd have to tell David and Mary Margaret and Emma, and then Regina, and the town. And Belle.

He wondered if part of the reason she hadn't wanted to tell her friends she was dating him was because of their age difference. He wondered if knowing he was a grandfather would chase her away for good.

Not that it mattered. He still had to do it. How could he live with himself, after all, if he actively kept his son from experiencing such a perfect moment as Gold had just gotten to experience? He couldn't. And he couldn't let his son ever come home and find his own father's body, bloody and motionless with a gun in his hand. Bae would never stop feeling like he hadn't been enough—and Gold would never sentence his own boy to that fate.

Slowly, methodically, Gold took their leftover food to the kitchen and put it all away, each item set just so in its particular place. The phone in his pocket seemed to grow heavier with every moment.

He so longed to call Belle. To hear her voice. To borrow a bit of her bravery for himself. In his own imaginings, she would be pleased that he'd called. She'd want to hear about his week with Bae. She'd tell him if her friends had gotten off okay. She'd want the invitation he'd hint he wanted—so badly—to give, and she'd come as quick as she could and stay the night and then just never leave again.

But that was only imagination. In reality, she was probably curled up with a good book and though she'd be kind as always, she would really be wondering why he was calling so late. Why he couldn't just wait until morning. If she was out, with Ruby or Leroy or any of her other friends she'd never introduced him to, she would have to speak to him quickly and quietly and get him off the phone in a rush.

Not that she ever had before, but it was a possibility and the mere idea of it made Gold shudder in horror. He refused to be a burden or an imposition to her. Whatever she chose to give him of herself was more than he'd ever deserve and he would not allow himself, this one time, to be clingy and needy and drive her away any faster.

The sound of his phone ringing just as he set his hand to the banister of the staircase to head upstairs startled him so much that he dropped his bag. The sight of Belle's name on the screen—and a picture of herself she'd sent him and set up herself in his contact information—had him forgetting the bag entirely.

"Belle, hey," he said as he answered. Not suave or debonair at all, a vicious whisper in his mind scorned. He sounded stupid.

But there was a smile evident in Belle's voice as she said, "Rumple! I'm sorry, I know you're probably tired, but I wanted to make sure you and Bae had gotten back safely."

"Just got in a few moments ago," he said. He leaned his spine against the banister, cradling the phone close to his ear so he could hear every nuance of her beautiful voice. "It was…a great time. I'm so glad we went."

"Then I am too," Belle said. "Even though I missed you more than I thought was possible."

"Yeah?" A tiny smile played along Gold's lips, which seemed all the more miraculous when he realized that he was standing in the foyer of his house, staring toward the cabinet where his gun lay hidden, and this was the first time all night that it had occurred to him. He couldn't even imagine going over and sliding open that drawer and feeling the weight of the weapon in his hand. There was not a single iota of interest in the proposition, and this seemed such a victory that he was brave enough to say, "Maybe next time you can come with us."

He'd buy a new couch with a hideaway bed and Bae could sleep out by the fire with the smell of melted marshmallows and dripping chocolate smears. Maybe one day, far in the future, Gold could pay to have an additional couple rooms added to the cabin, and his son and Emma could stay in the new bedroom while Henry slept next door and Gold cuddled close to Belle in their own room.

There was a catch in Belle's breath, a thread of excitement wound through her voice. "I'd like that. If you think Bae wouldn't mind."

"I'll talk to him," he said, and then realized it sounded like a promise.

It was a promise. Wasn't that why he was headed upstairs in the first place?

A thump from above reminded Gold that Bae had probably already unpacked—or at least thrown his dirty clothes in the direction of the hamper—and that he'd promised to stay close while Bae showered. In time, they'd trust themselves, but for now, they'd each promised to be there for the other during the dangerous moments.

Slowly, Gold started up the steps. He left his bag behind, choosing to hold onto the phone instead.

"Rumple…" Belle paused in such a way that Gold could all but see her, tucking her bottom lip inside her mouth and looking at him sidelong. Pretending to tact but too brave to not face something forthrightly. "I love you."

His heart leapt in his chest. Gold stopped mid-step so he could rub at his chest again with his hand, bumping his cane awkwardly against the wall. His old heart wasn't used to this much warmth.

"I love you too," he said.

If only he could keep this forever. If only he knew how to be happy for longer than a few moments at a time.

"Belle," he blurted before she could hang up. "There's something I…"

"Rumple?"

He couldn't speak. How could he make himself spell out the particulars of all the ways he wasn't worthy of her?

"You can tell me anything," she said, softly, so open and trusting and patient and good.

"I know," he said.

He could. He should.

"It's about Bae. He…" Gold rasped in a quick breath and gained the top of the stairs. "He and Emma…they…"

"Knew each other," Belle said with a hint of amusement. "I remember."

"Well, they knew each other in more than one sense." Gold looked to the closed door of Bae's room where he heard two more thumps. His son hadn't used to be so clumsy. A tickle of foreboding raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

"And will again?" Belle asked.

Gold frowned. "What?"

"Baelfire," Belle prompted him. "And Emma?"

"They have a few problems to work through. No matter. I'll do what I can for him."

The phone was too impersonal. Bae was too remote with the door between them. This wasn't the right time.

He wondered if it ever would be.

"Of course you will," Belle said, and now she was all warmth. All faith. All light reminding him that he didn't have to bow to his darkest, more fearful thoughts anymore. "That's what you do when you love someone, Rumple: you fight for them. You never stop fighting for them."

"Not my best color, that," he said ruefully.

Belle laughed. "What are you talking about? I learned that from you. That's how you love, Rumple. You've inspired me to be a better person. You've taught me how to show someone you truly care for them."

Rumple blinked, his grip almost faltering on the phone. "You already knew that, sweetheart."

"Me?" Belle made a strange, almost bitter noise. "Not really. Why do you think I'm here? I haven't seen my father in almost a decade. I ran from my friends. I hide from those closest to me. I'm good at posturing, Rumple, and putting up a brave face. But I'm best at running."

He couldn't believe that. Not brave, bold, unflinching Belle.

"Sweetheart," he said, "you're a hero who fights for those who've forgotten how. You're a beautiful woman who reminds everyone you meet of the beauty that's still in this world. No matter how bad the situation, you always find the good, and if it's not there…you create it. That's who you are."

Belle didn't speak, but he could hear her breathing. He thought maybe she was even crying.

"I'm sorry," he said, and took a step toward Bae's room. "I don't mean to—"

"No, no!" she said. "That's…listening to you…knowing the way you see me…it's the first time I've ever really felt beautiful."

"Beautiful Belle," he breathed, his lips quirking up into a smile.

And that's when Bae's door crashed open and his son fell to his knees.

No. He was pushed to his knees. By something behind him.

Someone behind him.

Someone not much taller than Gold or Bae. Someone with a gun in his hand and blood in his smile and eyes that glittered with imaginative malice.

The phone dropped from Gold's suddenly nerveless hand.

"Papa!" Bae gritted. "Run!"

"Yes," Malcolm said. "Run like a little rabbit. Run like you always do. Run—and I'll shoot him in the head."

"No!" Gold bleated. His cane rolled along the hallway as he lifted his hands to show he was unarmed. "Please, just let him go."

"Still the little coward, eh, laddie? It's good to know some things never change."

"Run!" Bae shouted, and he was up, on his feet, twisting, turning back, wrestling for the gun, and Gold tasted bile in his mouth as terror filled him up and overflowed to spill back down the steps. It twisted, viscous and nauseating in his belly, turning his hands to quivering putty.

"Bae!" he screamed, but it was too late.

The gun fell, skittered at a wild kick from Bae, but Bae was only kicking because Malcolm's hands were around his throat. Squeezing, tightening, contracting into fists that Gold knew the feeling of all too well.

"Let him go," Rumple said. His voice was a sad, quiet little thing, falling pitifully to the floor before it could reach Malcolm. "Please. Please, just let him go."

And his father looked straight up at him, into him, because even if he hadn't heard the words, he knew, didn't he? He knew exactly what Rumplestiltskin was. He knew the kind of man his son was. He knew that cowards always begged and kissed the boots of their betters rather than fighting for what they loved.

"I'll let him go," Malcolm said. "As soon as you tell him to stop fighting."

"Bae," Rumple couldn't look at his son, "Bae, son, just let him go. Let go, son."

"Papa!" Bae's eyes were furious, sizzling with rage and fear and hurt. Rumple felt the lash of it even from the opposite side of the hall.

With a sneer, Malcolm lunged backward, scooped up the gun, and pointed it straight at Bae's heart. Which really meant straight at Rumple's heart too. "All right, Bae, turn around."

Bae's face was like flint as he put himself between Malcolm and Rumple, his back to the man he knew only as Pan. He glared at his father, and Rumple felt himself shrinking, melting, disintegrating into dust.

"This doesn't have to be difficult," Malcolm said. "You've made a nice little nest for yourself, haven't you, Rumple? All I need is a place to lie low for a while, a place no one would think to look for me, and well, you've done a marvelous job of cutting me out of your life and pretending we don't have a history, haven't you? Yes, I think this place will do very nicely indeed."

Rumple couldn't look away from his son, desperate to know that Bae was still breathing, would keep breathing, which meant that he saw the confusion puncturing through Bae's fury. "What is he talking about?" he asked.

Malcolm's grin was sheer malevolence, gleeful and smug and patronizing all at once. "Oh, you haven't even clued your own boy in?"

"Neither did you," Rumple said hoarsely.

"I was waiting for the perfect moment." Malcolm's grin widened. "And I think this might be it."

"Please." The word slipped from him as easy as breathing. Not that it did any good. It never had before. Rumple couldn't fathom why he kept trying it.

"Papa?" Bae asked, small and quiet and already working it out. He was smart. Far too clever for Rumple's own good.

"Go on," Malcolm invited magnanimously. "Unless you want me to do it?"

Rumple flinched, and his boy, his brave and good and kind boy, half-turned and shouted, "Stop! Can't you tell you're hurting him?"

"Rumple's always been a little too sensitive," Malcolm sneered. "I tried beating it out of him. I tried giving up on him. I tried getting rid of him in a multitude of ways. But nothing ever stuck, did it, laddie? Guess sometimes blood doesn't run true at all." He paused and looked between Bae and Rumple. "But then, I suppose you hope it doesn't. If he's even your real son at all. Milah sure did have some interesting tales of her own to tell."

The blows kept coming. Rumple cowered beneath them all, but there was a part of him, hidden deep within, that plotted and thought and schemed without being distracted by the slurs and implications. He'd thought them to himself, accused his own reflection, too many times not to have grown ever so slightly inured to them.

What he was thinking was this: Malcolm wasn't dead as the police believed.

Malcolm was on the run and needed somewhere to hide—which meant someone was chasing him, someone probably dangerous and potentially willing to ally with Rumple in an enemy-of-my-enemy sort of way.

The gun in Malcolm's hand kept slipping as his arm dropped, which meant he was probably hurt already.

And the only thing keeping Malcolm safe in this moment was Bae standing between him and Rumple.

Or at least, Rumple hoped that was the only impediment. He hoped his own foolish, sensitive heart wouldn't throw up a few roadblocks of its own.

"Papa," Bae said. Loudly. Purposefully. As if he hadn't heard the doubt Malcolm was casting. "What is he talking about?"

And Rumple couldn't tell him. Couldn't speak the words.

But Malcolm could.

"Rumple and I go way back," he said in that storytelling voice Rumple used to love so much. "All the way to the beginning. Back when your papa was just a tiny little infant." His tone flattened. "A wriggling little larva stealing all my time. All my money. All my dreams."

"No," Bae said, but it was as useless as a please.

"Who do you think told me about you?" Malcolm asked Bae. "You think I just randomly found you? No, your dear old da couldn't stop singing your praises."

"We only spoke once," Rumple gritted. "And half the conversation was me telling you to never speak to me again."

"The other half was all about precious Baelfire and just how much he meant to you. And you were promising," Malcolm told Bae. "But too temperamental. Too much of a flight risk. Too stubborn. Ah well, maybe the third generation down will be the charm."

Rumple's blood turned cold.

"Bae," he said. "Come to me."

"Ah ah ah," Malcolm scolded, poking the gun into Bae's back. "No sudden movements, Baelfire. You just stay exactly where you are."

But the back of Rumple's heel hit the edge of the stairs, and Bae was watching him, his brow creased, his eyes filled with rapid deductions…and Malcolm couldn't be allowed to say anything else. Not yet.

Rumple had been going to tell him. He had. He was almost sure of it.

"Here's the deal," Malcolm said. "Baelfire's going to stay in his room. I'm going to stay in whatever room I so desire. And you, Rumple, are going to sit tight in the cellar of this house. I've been down there already; you should have plenty of memories to keep you company. But first, you're going to open that safe in your study for me. How much cash do you keep on hand? Oh, and your phones? I'm going to need them."

"You can't think staying here is a viable plan," Rumple said with his own pale shadow of a sneer. "You think no one will notice if Bae and I just suddenly stop leaving the house?"

"You've always been a recluse," Malcolm said. "Not by choice, really, though I'm sure you've told yourself differently. What other choice do you have when no one can stand to be around you for long."

Rumple thought of Belle. He thought of the phone he'd dropped, and her voice still on the line, and he very carefully didn't let his gaze drop to the floor.

"I won't do it," Bae said unexpectedly. "I'm done listening to you, Pan. You can't make me a prisoner again. I've always escaped from you before. I can—"

"Did you? Did you really? No, Baelfire, you were always just exactly where I wanted you. A bit of freedom goes a long way in making a man out of a boy." He glanced at Rumple. "Well, most of the time anyway."

"I don't believe you," Bae said, but he did. Rumple could tell. Besides, Malcolm had always been a conman. He was very good at convincing someone of the almost-truth.

"Don't listen to him, son."

"Be quiet, son," Malcolm sneered and Bae jerked. But of course, Malcolm was looking straight at Rumple.

And Rumple seized his moment.

"I'm not going to hide in this house," he said. He took a step to the side. "There are people who will notice when I don't open the shop. Or collect the rent. Or meet the deputy for lunch."

As he'd hoped, this snatched the whole of Malcolm's attention. "What deputy? Don't tell me you finally learned how to make friends? Well, isn't that just cute?" he spat.

Rumple lunged forward just as Bae dropped to the floor, leaving Rumple free to body-slam his father into the wall. Malcolm snarled and tried to throw him off, back the way he'd come at the edge of the staircase, but Rumple's hands had snared themselves deep in his father's rumpled jacket and stained shirt and he took Malcolm with him. Rumple did his best to keep his body loose, but he couldn't help but tense as he felt them fall into open air. The first stairs hit under the small of his back and the nape of his neck. He tried to roll them so that his father bore the brunt of the next roll, but Malcolm was struggling for the gun, trying to pull Rumple's hands from his clothes.

Rumple held on and felt every bruise forming as they tumbled down the staircase.

When they landed, finally, in a tangle of pain and terror, Malcolm was the first to pull himself up. But he'd lost the gun and Rumple was used to fighting his way up from the bottom.

He let himself splay there, on the floor, at his father's feet, belly-up, vulnerable and defenseless and so easy to underestimate.

"Papa," he cried, like he used to. "Papa, please!"

"You always ruin everything!" Malcolm snapped. "Couldn't you ever, just once, come in handy to have around?"

He was advancing. Of course he was. Malcolm, like Milah, like Cora, loved to feel powerful. And Rumple—small and timid and self-effacing—by his very existence, made them feel strong. In control. Undefeatable.

Slowly, crawling backward like a crab, Rumple shrank away from his father's approach. Malcolm was speaking—he so rarely ever shut up—but instead of listening, Rumple let his scared, wide eyes drift up to the top of the staircase. To Bae…silent as he crept halfway down the stairs to pick up Malcolm's gun.

But Bae had nightmares enough. He'd already borne too many of Rumple's burdens.

Besides, Rumple felt the cabinet at his back.

"I loved you," Rumple told his father.

His love, after all, was always the thing most likely to make Malcolm fly into a rage.

It worked.

Malcolm kicked and hit and spit on him, and Rumple curled into a ball and let him. Of course he did. He always had before, when he thought letting his father rage would bring back the stories and laughter and love. When he'd hoped that Milah would stay if only she'd calm. When he'd dared to think that his darkness could soften the edges of Cora's.

But it never had worked. And it wouldn't now, only this time, Rumple was fighting to save his son.

For his boy, he could endure any amount of beatings.

Especially when that drawer slid open so smoothly. Soundlessly.

His hand curved around the gun with the ease of long familiarity. Its weight was such a known quantity that not a single muscle of his body betrayed that he'd picked up the weapon. The trigger was smooth, every groove intimately known to him.

Close your eyes, Bae, he thought.

And Rumple lifted the gun—his father's eyes widened—and finally, after all those endless tally-marks, he did what he'd pictured countless times.

He pulled the trigger.

"I love you, Papa," he whispered.

Dropping bonelessly, leaking blood from his chest, Malcolm landed heavily atop Gold.

The last bruise, he couldn't help but think, that his father would ever give him.

It felt, bizarrely, like a final kiss.

Darkness hazed his vision. Or maybe he'd fainted and light only slowly spiraled back into his awareness. There was a muffled voice, growing closer, or perhaps just clearer, and then something heavy was dragged off him.

"Bae," he whispered, and sure enough, there was his son.

"Papa," he read on his lips, but everything sounded as if he were underwater.

"The police," he tried to say. "Call the police."

Bae was still speaking. There were tears drying on his face, but his jaw was set in that mulish expression he always denied.

"Tell them it was my fault," Gold tried to say. "It was all me."

"Papa," Bae's mouth moved.

Was the gun still in his hand? He hoped so. Bae shouldn't touch it. The police would find no one's fingerprints but his own.

Rumple tightened his grip over whatever was in his hand. It was warm and squeezed his palm in return.

He wasn't alone.

The blackness took him again.

When next he woke, they were waiting for David Nolan to arrive. "He's going to hate me," Bae said mournfully. "That's not going to help my case with Emma."

"You might be surprised," Gold said, thinking of how stubborn the teenager was.

Bae startled. "You're awake!"

"I'm here."

So was Malcolm's body. Aside from moving it off of Gold, it didn't look like Bae had touched him. Gold wished Bae hadn't even had to do that much.

"I'm sorry, son," he said.

Cautiously, Bae settled back against the wall where Gold was propped. His shoulder helped keep Gold from sliding down. "He was your father," he said with what he probably thought was a neutral tone.

"Unfortunately for him."

"Whatever," Bae said angrily. "You were the best thing that ever happened to him. He's the one too stupid to have realized it."

Gold imagined that his son, tangled up in issues and problems of his own, was probably speaking from his own preconceived bias about fathers and sons and missed opportunities, but it was still an absolutely marvelous thing to hear.

He wished it were true.

"Papa?" he heard Bae ask, as if from a thousand miles away. As if he were still missing, still trapped out there in the dark and the cold, a million possible futures unspooling before Gold—and none of them good.

"Son," he tried to say, but the world spun away from him.

"—it's going to be okay. Don't worry, Papa, Belle had already called them. They'll be here any second. You'll get the best care possible, I promise."

"Don't leave me," Gold murmured.

His hand was warm and encased in something indescribably precious. "I won't," his boy said, clasping tightly. "I'm never leaving you again, okay?"

"You will."

Later, Gold would tell himself that he was delirious with pain, out of his mind with grief and stress—that he hadn't fully known the ramifications of what he said. But later, he would be composed enough to lie to himself.

In the moment, he knew that it might be his last chance to be fully honest with his own son.

In the moment, he was brave. Or as brave as a coward ever could be.

"I know where your son is," he said through a mouth dry with terror. "He's here. Emma's baby—I didn't know he was yours. I owed David Nolan a debt, and I repaid it by making sure his grandson was adopted here in town."

If Bae said anything, Gold didn't hear it under the sudden commotion of the door bursting open, badges glinting, blue and red lighting the air outside and swallowing up the golden warmth of the porch light.

"Bae?" he tried to call. There was no answer.

"His name is Henry," he breathed, and then he let the darkness reclaim him. The only thing that accompanied him into oblivion was the feel of his son's hand letting go of his.