It'd been three weeks since Belle had last seen Gold, and for all she told herself there was a host of extenuating circumstances to justify his absences, she couldn't entirely quiet the whispers in her mind telling her he'd grown tired of her. Bored with her. She wasn't enough and she never would be, and the mundanity was pressing in on her so that even rearranging the entire children's section couldn't still the restlessness rousing inside her.

This was dangerous. Belle never made good decisions when she was feeling this way: jittery and useless and forgotten. It was a potent combination that had never done anything but get her into trouble—much of which she was still paying for to this day.

So that evening, after closing the library, when her eyes wandered toward the Rabbit Hole down one dark street, she determinedly turned instead toward Granny's Diner. Truthfully, she didn't eat out that often, but a bit of company, some sights outside her library or her apartment, could only do her good. Maybe it would be enough this time.

Unfortunately, she hadn't counted on just how frigid it was. Six years she'd been living here, but Maine's winters still shocked her occasionally. By the time she spilled into Granny's, Belle's teeth were chattering and she was curled as small as she could make herself into her clearly insufficient coat.

"Belle!" Ruby was there instantly, pulling her farther inside and standing her where the blast of the humming heater in the ceiling vented down toward her. "I'll get you some tea—how about nice and hot today?"

"S-s-sounds g-great," she said through her chattering teeth. Though she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and sink into the warmth of the heater, Belle couldn't help but take a quick glance around the diner to see just how many people had witnessed her ignominious entrance.

Only Leroy in the corner—who toasted her with his drink and a sympathetic shudder—and the Zimmerman twins and their father finishing up a hearty dinner, paying little attention to anything but each other.

Satisfied, Belle dared to leave her warm spot in order to slide into a booth and wrap both her hands around the steaming cup Ruby set in front of her.

"I'll bring the pot over," Ruby said. "You want something to eat too?"

"Stew? Soup?" Belle smiled sheepishly. "Anything that's really hot?"

With a laugh, Ruby patted her shoulder. "I've got you covered. Sit tight, it'll be out soon."

Belle still hadn't managed to take even a sip of the tea, too busy soaking in its warmth through the ceramic cup, when the door opened and she heard the distinctive sound of a cane tapping against the floor. Everything in her brightened immediately as she looked up to find Mr. Gold standing near the counter.

Rumplestiltskin, she thought, still not quite able to get over the fact that his name came straight from a fairytale, even if one of the grislier ones.

"Mr. Gold!" she said. Still shivering, she slid out of the booth and approached him. "How are you?"

"Fine," he said, but now that she was closer and past the first delighted surprise of seeing him, Belle didn't think he looked fine at all.

In fact, he looked awful.

Belle's eyes flitted from the dark smudges under his eyes to the too-defined hollows of his cheeks to the wrist bones jutting out from the sleeves of his long coat with a pause between to note that his tie was loose and ever so slightly crooked.

"Just a cup of tea to go," Gold said, and Belle looked behind her to see Ruby nodding and turning to grab a paper cup.

"It was quite the storm, wasn't it?" Belle heard herself say, as if from outside herself. "I couldn't even leave the library for several days. It was such a relief when they were able to clear the roads. Not that they're entirely clear yet. I guess that's why you haven't managed to make it into the library for a while?"

Forcibly, biting her own lip, Belle shut up before she overwhelmed the poor man.

"I didn't realize volunteering was compulsory," he said with a sneer she'd never heard from him before. "Should I give you my full itinerary each week just to keep you from hounding me?"

Stung, Belle drew herself up. Before she could let loose the tart remark brewing in her mouth, though, Ruby shoved Gold's cup down on the counter.

"That'll be two dollars," she clipped out. Obviously, she'd heard Gold's snide words, and even more obviously, she didn't expect anything better from Mr. Gold, town monster. And Gold…well, he didn't seem surprised by the rude treatment and hiked payment—which meant he didn't expect anything better either.

But then, Ruby probably didn't know Mr. Gold's first name. Or how old he was. Or that he was more skilled with a needle and thread than anyone else Belle had ever met. Or that he smiled at children when no one was looking but pretended he didn't care that so many parents rushed their little ones away from him.

But Belle knew all that. Just like she knew something had to be wrong. Even if his short temper hadn't given it away, that crooked tie was more than sign enough all on its own.

"Mr. Gold," Belle said in her softest tone. "I won't talk about volunteering or the library at all, I promise, but…please, won't you sit and eat with me? I hate eating alone."

Behind her, there was a slight gasp from Ruby.

Belle didn't look away from Mr. Gold. He looked, at first, as if he hadn't even heard her, but that quickly faded into disbelief and then, finally, what looked like shame. Dropping his eyes, he inched a tiny step away from her.

"I should probably go."

That wasn't a no. It wasn't even an I don't want to. It was a man looking for a second invitation to be sure the first was sincere.

Belle had done that too many times herself not to recognize it.

"You can share my pot of tea," she offered, and when he darted a sidelong glance at her, she smiled. "I'll let you hog all the sugar."

To her relief, that seemed to do the trick.

"All right," he murmured. And just like that, Belle led a docile Mr. Gold to her booth. Before he took a seat, he doffed his long coat, and Belle couldn't help shivering at the slight draft the fabric caused sweeping loose.

"If I may," Mr. Gold said quietly before reaching out and draping his coat over her shoulders.

The coat was warmer than anything else in the diner, but that wasn't why Belle gripped it with both hands and melted into it. No, that was because it smelled of him—and because he'd given it to her without any prompting or hesitation.

"Thank you," she said sincerely as they both sat down and faced each other over the table. "I can't seem to stay warm this winter."

"I'd hate to think of anyone left cold out in these elements," Gold murmured. His eyes drifted past her, out the window to the white streets. There was something heavy and dark shadowing his tone, but Belle didn't think it had anything to do with her.

Or she hoped it didn't, anyway.

"Well, the tea will warm us up," she said with careful cheer. Nudging the sugar and cream his way, Belle looked toward Ruby. "Can you bring an extra bowl of whatever you're bringing me?"

For a moment, as Belle tried not to be obvious in sniffing the coat warming her from the inside out and Gold uncapped his Styrofoam cup to add the inordinate amount of sugar he preferred to his tea, they were silent. She hoped it wasn't an uncomfortable silence—she didn't think it was, but then, she'd never been the best judge. Truthfully, interactions with people were always something of a mystery to her. According to her father, she tended to treat every person she met as if they were a character in a book, all too ready to help her on her journey or become an unforgettable friend if only she connected to them in the right way. And…well, maybe he was right.

But real people were a lot more complicated than that. Or maybe they were simpler. Either way, Belle often felt that she held entirely different conversations with people than they seemed to think.

And she didn't want that, not with Rumplestiltskin. Not when they'd been doing so well.

"Surviving the cold weather?" she asked.

It was a stupid question. The weather? Really? It seemed that if she couldn't talk about the library, she was reduced to the most cliché of small talk. Which didn't bode well for the rest of this unexpected dinner.

But Gold didn't react as if it were a trite question. In fact, he startled so badly that he spilled his cup of tea all over the table. Apologies poured from his lips as they both stemmed the flood with a dam of napkins before Ruby rushed over and cleaned it up as if it'd never been.

"I'm so sorry," he said again, more quietly, his eyes locked on his hands, as soon as they were alone again.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "You don't want to know how many things I drop a day."

"Still…"

"It didn't even touch me." She ducked her head, trying to meet his eyes, as she smiled at him. "If anything, it would have gotten your coat, not me."

His lips twitched, but it resembled a grimace more than a smile.

"Really." On impulse, she reached over the shining table and clasped his hand long enough to give it a small squeeze. "It's just tea."

Thankfully, Ruby came out then with two steaming bowls of stew and a replacement mug of tea. Despite the fact that she'd warmed up by now, Belle leaned over the bowl to breathe in the aromatic heat wafting upward. Her stomach chose that moment to growl, reminder that she'd had only a few quick bites of a granola bar for lunch.

She was three bites in when she realized that Gold hadn't even reached for his silverware yet.

"You don't like stew?" She lowered her spoon. "I'm sorry, I should have asked—"

"No. It's…" Giving his head a tiny shake, as if waking himself up, Gold lifted his spoon and carefully scooped up a bit of the broth. "It smells…delicious."

"Don't sound so surprised," Belle said, teasing. "They do have good food here."

Together, in what she'd swear was companionable silence, they began to eat. Belle was desperate to keep him here—to not bore him but also to not overwhelm him—but she kept her mouth full of food rather than words. Truthfully, she was afraid to distract him. The more she studied him, the more she found to be worried about, and not least was how gaunt he looked. No amount of conversation was worth more than getting some food into him.

"I'm sorry," he finally told his stew when he'd eaten half of it.

Belle blinked. "For what?"

"For not making it to the library. I've been…busy. I had to travel to Boston for a week."

"Oh." Dropping her spoon, Belle wrapped her hand around her teacup. "For business?"

"Not exactly."

When he said nothing more, she ventured, "I lived in Boston for a couple years. Not my finest."

He snorted. "This was hardly my finest week either. It brought up uncomfortable memories."

"Oh?"

They were both fascinated by the swirling ripples his spoon made in his remaining broth, tiny clockwise circles that stirred up a few pieces of meat and carrots and potatoes.

"I'm glad you were here," he finally said. "I…I needed to talk to someone today."

"I get that."

"It's on my list." And he looked up, his eyes meeting hers unexpectedly. "I think I mentioned it before."

"You did," she said quietly.

He swallowed, hard enough for her to hear it from her seat on the other side of the table. "I…haven't been doing well. Lately."

Against her will, Belle's eyes flitted over him, from the deep bruises under his eyes to the crooked tie to the jutting wrist bones.

"I made a list. To help me."

A long time ago, when she had first moved here and Ruby was her only friend, Belle had come up with casual gestures she could make, like a shorthand, so Ruby could know what she was thinking without having to leave her tipping customers to come check on her. Having that tiny connection, that insider knowledge, had kept Belle going through the first long, lonely, hard year she was here. Now, even though they hadn't used it for a while, Belle tucked her hair behind her ear, a bit ostentatiously, and hoped Ruby was watching.

"Is it a long list?" she asked Rumplestiltskin.

"Not long, but pretty nearly impossible," he said with the suggestion of a sneer that all too quickly faded. "But I have to try."

"That's one of the reasons I moved here," she offered. "To get me out of the stupid things I was doing in Boston. To try to do better."

"And it worked for you," he said. It didn't sound like a question, and that warmed Belle even more than his coat had.

"A work in progress," she said with a soft smile.

"Well. The first item on my list…" His shoulders were slumped, his head fighting not to bow beneath whatever weight he was carrying, and Belle wanted nothing more to help him. But then, others had wanted to help her, once upon a time, and she hadn't known how to let them. Ariel had tried everything, but it wasn't until Belle hit rock bottom that she'd seen about parceling out that weight herself.

So Belle bit her tongue, laid her hand flat on the table halfway between them, and she waited.

It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, but it was worth it.

"The first item is to go outside everyday," he finally confessed. "But it doesn't help. Not by itself." He paused, then blurted, "Do you remember…? No, I'm sure it meant nothing to you, but a while back, I was here eating a hamburger and you came in. You loaned me your umbrella."

"I remember." Her hand, of its own accord, scooted closer to him, crossing the midway point that divided her side of the table from his.

"Well. You told me the rain was beautiful. And it made me see it."

Her breath caught in her throat, an audible gasp that had him looking up at her anxiously. Whatever he saw there was enough to get him talking again.

"I hadn't noticed the rain in years. But that night…it was beautiful."

"It really was," she whispered, but she wasn't sure he heard her.

"The second item is to talk to someone. Every day. I don't…I'm not good at it. Talking to people. Sometimes, I think I could just stop talking and the whole world would be better for it."

"That's not true," she interrupted. "I love talking to you."

His cheeks darkened. She could tell even through the strands of hair that covered his face as he avoided her eyes. "I...it's easier. Talking to you. Than anyone else."

His hand was lying flat beside his bowl. Empty. Lonely. And Belle's own hand felt empty, and it was so easy to lay hers over his. Too late, she thought maybe it was a mistake, that he'd be uncomfortable—that he'd stop talking—that she was infringing on his personal space, harassing him.

But all he did was stare at where their hands met. Stare and stare and stare as if he'd never been touched before. She wondered how long it had been, if anyone in this town bothered to look past the suit to see the loneliness—she wondered why he was letting her see behind his masks.

"The third thing is to volunteer," he whispered.

Belle was starting to sense a trend with this list. A knot formed in the pit of her stomach, because she'd been seeing Dr. Hopper for years now, and she'd been forced to a therapist by her dad when she was a teenager, and she'd read books on psychology and grief and depression and all the different ways they could manifest. And she thought, if you boiled all of that down to the barest essentials, you would end up with a precautionary list that sounded exactly like this one Rumplestiltskin Gold had made for himself.

"Well," she said through the tight vice around her throat. "I'd say that I'm glad you chose the library, but then I'd be talking about exactly what I promised I wouldn't."

"The fourth," he said, as if he had to get it all out at once, "is to be accountable to someone. To have someone…someone know what I'm trying to do. If I do it or if I just…stop."

Stop. Belle had never realized before what a terrifying word that was.

"Maybe you should send me a weekly itinerary," she said with as much of a teasing tone as she could manage.

"Maybe." This time, when he dragged his eyes up to hers, he didn't look nervous or stressed or shy. He just looked…numb. Even his voice sounded it, all the color leached out of it. "I know it's not fair to expect anything of you. You surely have so many better things to do than to have to worry about the town monster. But…the other day, you said you felt like all you had were your books. You said…" He gave a tiny shake of his head, thankfully choosing not to spell out all her faults. "I thought maybe we could help each other."

"I would love that!" she blurted, the words running all together in her excitement.

He was going to let her help him. She wasn't too much for him, or not enough for him; she was just exactly right for what he needed.

And there, for just an instant, with his warm brown eyes looking at her—seeing her—Belle saw his lips curve up in a shy, entirely sincere smile.

He wasn't humoring her. He wasn't coddling her. He needed her. More than that, he wanted her—wanted her to be what he needed.

They were interrupted by Ruby coming over with a pair of plates in hand. Apparently, she had been watching and she still remembered the silly little codes Belle had come up with.

"Dessert," she said with a flourish. She turned to Belle long enough to give her a look that seemed to convey warning, disbelief, a demand for information, and a promise to be close if Belle needed her all at once.

"Thanks, Ruby," Belle said. She grinned at Rumplestiltskin over the plates of warm brownies drenched in hot fudge. "I hope you don't mind, but it seemed like a dessert kind of day."

The brownies were probably too rich for him, really, if he'd been eating as little as she suspected. But the sugar couldn't hurt him, and sometimes just the presence of a sweet—something extra and luxurious and self-indulgent—could do more good than anything.

"It smells delicious," he said, as if it were a revelation, and Belle's heart squeezed inside her chest.

She'd felt that, for years, that numbness that kept a wad of cotton between her and the world. It had frightened her, so much so she'd gone off the rails seeking first excitement, then adventure, then danger, always needing that next new high of sensation, of feeling, of anything that could pierce past the hazy gauze.

"I had my own list, once upon a time," she told her plate. "My mom died when I was sixteen, and it…it really destroyed me, you know? I didn't know how to be me without her, and I ended up going through a long rough patch trying to find myself in all the worst ways. I've always been impulsive, at least according to my dad, but my grief turned me reckless. The thing is…I knew I needed help the whole time. I was desperate for it, actually. I just…I couldn't let myself reach out for it. Or ask for it. Or even accept it when my best friend and her husband offered it over and over again."

"I'm sorry," he murmured. She could feel his gaze on her, and simply because she wanted to savor the fact that he was focused on her, she didn't look up. Or maybe it was shame, still. Who knew?

"I'm telling you this because I want you to know how much it means to me that you're talking to me. I wasn't as brave as you and I didn't ask for help."

His scoff was so surprising that she couldn't help but look up at him. "I'm not brave," he muttered. "I've never in my life been brave."

This time, she didn't regret taking his hand into hers. "Making this list, trying, asking for help…that's all incredibly brave," she said.

She'd never listened when Ariel said much the same thing. When Mulan had self-destructed by getting into endless fights and turning frighteningly solitary after Phillip and Aurora's wedding, she hadn't seemed to hear a single word Belle ever said about letting her help. But Rumplestiltskin looked at her, and his eyes were so soft, so warm, and his lips were almost ready for a smile…and she thought he actually listened. He really heard her. And he believed her.

Maybe not tomorrow, or even later tonight when he returned to his lonely house. But in this moment, with his hand warm and calloused against hers…he saw her. He heard her. He trusted her.

And that was enough for a beginning.

It was enough to make her whole year.