A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting - hope you enjoy the new chapter!

Belle was fully recovered two days later, and filled with excitement over the series she'd nearly finished.

"Did you rest at all?" he teased her. There was something freeing about knowing that she wouldn't take offense at his strange brand of humor—something comforting about being able to trust she laughed with him, because of him, rather than at him.

"Oh, hush," she said and swatted his arm with the third book in the series that she'd been passionately recapping for him. "I wasn't that sick, and anyway, you're the one who gave them to me."

"Incentive to get better, not excuse to exhaust yourself," he claimed, but couldn't deny the warm feeling spreading outward from the pit of his stomach.

"It worked," she said softly, and then handed him another book to repair.

He couldn't help but notice that their stack was getting smaller. There were only a handful remaining. Forcibly, he kept himself from wondering what would happen when he'd finished this task for her. By then, she'd probably need to decorate for spring, and after that…well, what could he do? She'd never risk plopping him in front of a group of children again, and his ankle kept him from climbing up and down the ladders necessary to shelve the returned books.

As volunteers went, Belle could do so much better.

But then Belle sat next to him, her shoulder leaned ever so slightly against his, and watched as he stitched pages back to the binding. She was relaxed, her hands slack on the copy of Cress held in her lap, and for once, Gold didn't feel self-conscious to have eyes following him so closely.

"That's amazing," she said for the hundredth time. "I can't even see the stitches as soon as you've made them."

"Practice," he said.

"Oh? Were you a tailor in another life?"

"My aunts were," he admitted. "Tailors, spinners, seamstresses—whatever was needed to bring in the money, really."

"And you learned from them?"

"Not much else to do as a young boy in a small town."

Particularly, he thought, one with no money, no parents, and his father's cowardly reputation hanging from his shoulders like an albatross.

"Your aunts raised you?"

"Pretty much." At her expectant look, Gold added, "They were kind. Had no idea what to do with a kid dumped in their laps, but they did their best. You can't ask for more than that."

"Do you still get to see them?" she asked, though her voice was so soft he knew she'd probably already guessed the answer.

"They died," he said, too shortly, almost sharp. Almost mean.

Belle was silent. It wasn't the comfortable silence he'd gradually become accustomed to; this was a darker, heavier silence, like a slammed door between them.

His throat tightened around a mass of words, none of them sufficient for soothing the sting of his sharp finality. The binding needed only a few last stitches, and then Belle would get up, she'd walk away, and this silence would stretch—and she wouldn't smile at him. The only beauty his world knew would be gone.

"What about you?" he heard himself ask, as if from far away. "You spoke of your mother, but is your father…?"

"Oh, he's fine." Belle waved a hand, and in that airy gesture, Gold felt relief, as if the silence, the jolt, was so easily brushed away. "He talks about moving here a lot to be closer to me, maybe setting up a flower shop, but… I don't know."

"You don't think he will?" Gold's mind ticked rapidly through the available real estate in town. None that were exceptional, but a small storefront just off Main Street might do the job.

"I hope he doesn't," Belle said quietly.

In Gold's mind, that storefront slammed closed with barred shutters and padlocked doors, an ironclad clause in its contract forbidding it from ever being made into a flower shop.

"I love him," Belle said quickly, as if Gold had doubted that at all from this woman with so much kindness, chock-full of understanding, so ready and willing to see the best in even the darkest of hearts. "It's just…he can be a bit controlling. And he has selective hearing in the sense that he only listens to me when I'm saying what he wants me to. Or what he agrees with. Even if that's not what I said at all. I just…I know I worried him, in Boston, but he acts as if that's still how I am, and when I'm trying so hard, when I've been doing so well…it's just…"

"Discouraging," he finished for her.

"Yeah." Her eyes met his, and Gold couldn't breathe. "It makes me feel like I haven't changed, and then I turn into the worst part of myself. You know?"

"Yeah," he breathed. Thought of Milah, and her disappointment, her fury, how it had only made him shrink tighter and smaller until he was nothing more than the worthless dust she thought he was. "I know."

"I do love him, but I think he can only see my mom when he looks at me, and I'm never going to be her. I can't be her. She was amazing, Rumple—smart and brave and always so clear on what she wanted and where she wanted to be. I wish that was me, but it's not."

Gold couldn't help but frown at her. His hands had long since fallen still, and now they tingled. Vaguely, he was aware that he wanted to reach out, wanted to put his hands over hers where she worried at the corner of Cress's cover. But the courage to follow through evaded him, so he only sat there, his eyes locked on her, and tried desperately to pick out the right words for her.

"I think you should just be you," he said, slowly, his throat hoarse, his tongue heavy in his mouth. "In my experience, parents are rarely as certain as kids think they are, but regardless…you're smart. And brave—brave enough to sit alone with the town monster. And you've made a place for yourself here that matters. You…you're just fine the way you are. Don't wish any of it different."

It was too much and not enough all at once, and Gold could only wince and wish he hadn't forced anything out of his mouth at all.

But then Belle's hand curled over his, and she was so close—had she been that close a moment ago?—and her eyes were so soft and so blue, and he couldn't think past the fact that she was smiling at him. "Thank you, Rumple." She bumped her shoulder against his. "Though you're not a monster. And you said you weren't good at being a friend? I think you're amazing at it."

"You make it easy," he said, which still seemed like too much, but she didn't move away. She didn't stop smiling. She didn't take her hand off his. So maybe it was just right.

The next day, he didn't see Belle. He still only came to the library two or three times a week, and no matter how the hours stretched interminably between, he didn't want to suffocate Belle with his presence. He was good at that, he knew, clinging and lingering and needing too much. Belle didn't deserve that. Bad enough he'd already guilted her into holding him accountable; he didn't need to steal more of her time than he already did.

But that night, he couldn't make it up the stairs to his bedroom. Bae was gone, and Belle would only be better off if he were out of her life, and what was the point of forcing himself to endure this half-life? There was nothing noble about lingering here, suffering and making others suffer his presence.

His finger traced the contours of the gun, and the next morning, when he dragged himself off the floor and upstairs into the bathroom, the steam on the mirror made him hold the razor too tightly lest it…slip…and cut something irrevocable.

"Belle?" he said as soon as he'd dialed her number.

"Good morning, Rumple," she said cheerfully, and before he knew it, he was asking if he could treat her to breakfast. "To make sure you're really recovered," he blustered, but it was such a paltry cover that he was surprised she didn't laugh at him. He was disgusting. Pathetic. He couldn't even make it through more than twenty-four hours without dragging her back beneath the bitter stormclouds he carried around with him.

But Belle smiled from the booth where she was sat, and clasped his hand, briefly, when he settled across from her, and she was so happy, glowing with something inside her that Gold was sure he'd been starved of his whole life, and so he didn't make excuses. Didn't even apologize. He just sat there, and ate breakfast with her—managed to clear his whole plate, even, a first in months—and did his best to make her smile so that he could try to convince himself he wasn't dragging her down with him.

That's what drowning people did, after all. Anyone who tried to save them, anyone who came too near, they'd latch on and panic and thrash until they drowned their rescuer right alongside them.

That night, still reliving the kiss to his cheek that Belle had placed there after breakfast, her hand on his forearm and her neck stretching up, her hair smelling of tea and books, all of it so fresh, so visceral, that Gold couldn't make himself think on anything else…well, that night, he knew he had to be better. For Belle's sake.

She deserved more than to be his life buoy—or worse, his victim.

Gold opened his little book, made his newest tally-mark, ran his thumb down the faded markings of his son's hospital bracelet, and then opened to the last page in the book. Only two or three pages further along, but the end all the same. Then, staring at the blank expanse, he froze.

Four items on his checklist. He'd made more progress than he'd ever thought he would, but still…still, every night, the gun was a temptation. The entryway was a danger. The trek upstairs, still breathing, seemed nearly insurmountable. The list was supposed to help, but instead it only seemed to be allowing him to tread water.

"Forgive me, Bae," he whispered.

And he set his pen down to that last, blank page, and wrote a fifth, more private goal.

5. Don't pull Belle down with you

He didn't call her the next day. In fact, he didn't even look in the direction of the library. He walked straight into his shop, hid himself in the backroom, and let the hours trudge past him, second by second, until it was finally time for him to make his way back home. Not that it felt like home. The only thing welcoming about it was the bright glow of the porch light, shining out to guide stolen boys home.

Gold stood outside in the cold staring at that light until he realized he could no longer feel his fingers. Then, like a man walking to the gallows, he climbed up the porch steps and unlocked his front door.

Standing in the threshold, he could see the cabinet. The drawer. The place where he kept his gun.

And suddenly, so abruptly it quite took his breath away, Gold couldn't bear to walk into that entryway. He couldn't bear to spend one more second looking at that gun.

Gold slammed the door shut in his own face, then turned and made his way into his back yard. The door leading into the kitchen was locked and though he thought that surely he'd hidden a spare key out here somewhere for Bae should the boy ever need to come home unexpectedly without his keys, he couldn't think of where he might have put such a thing. So instead, he headed down into the cellar. It had its own door, one seldom used and jammed up around the latch rather than actually locked. With a bit of brute force and patience, Gold got it open and he crept down the stairs until he could reach the light with its hanging string.

A single tug and the dusty room was illuminated in all its cobwebbed glory.

And coming down here, he realized right away, was a mistake.

All around him, on every side, there were boxes. Each one labeled in his own spidery handwriting. Each one marked with Bae's name.

Bae's Clothes – Infant

Bae's Clothes – 1 year

Bae's Toys – Toddler

Bae's Books – A-M

Bae…Bae…Bae…Bae…Bae..

And in the corner, bare and tiny, was the first little cot his boy had slept in after he'd learned to climb from his crib into Gold's bed.

"I'm cold, Papa," he'd say as he crawled close to Gold, belly jiggling with barely suppressed laughter, mouth twisting up mischievously. Gold reached up his hand to his neck, the ghostly feel of his son's tiny little fingers pressed there as he'd cry, "See! Cold, Papa!" And he'd laugh and laugh and laugh when Gold pretended to shudder and shake and be so cold he'd have to wrap Bae up in a bear hug and insist they hibernate until summer. They'd fallen asleep like that, curled up together, his boy radiating heat like a sauna and kicking blankets away until Gold really did have to cling to his boy for warmth, countless times. But not enough. Not nearly enough.

It would never be enough.

"Bae!" he keened. His cane slipped from his hands, and Gold stumbled against a box—Bae – Sheep Bedding/Winter Blankets—and careened back until he ended up on that little cot, his knees up nearly to his chin, his shoulders shaking and his chest feeling as if it were carved in two, as if he were literally being pulled into pieces, ripping and twisting until there wasn't enough left of him to bother trying to put back together.

"Bae. Bae."

Oblivious to the cold, Gold lay there on his son's baby cot and wept until he thought he might surely drown in his own tears and finally be put out of his misery.

The next morning, Gold could barely move. Not because of grief, but because he felt like he'd pulled every muscle in his back and his ankle hurt so badly he feared he'd sprained it again. It took him nearly an hour to drag himself out of the cellar, and far too long to hobble around to the front door where the keys still dangled in the lock. Eyes averted to his feet, Gold hurried—as much as he could—back to the kitchen, where he made himself drink two glasses of water with the painkillers he took, and then upstairs where he stripped and fell into the bed. His skin shuddered at the warmth of the house, and he couldn't be bothered to climb under the blankets.

Several hours later, he woke still feeling like death warmed over, but at least this time, he could stand without biting back a whimper. A hot shower loosened his muscles still further, another couple painkillers dulled his mind so that he couldn't remember if he was supposed to be at the shop or not, and before he could puzzle his way through it, he'd already collapsed into bed again.

He woke long enough to drink another glass of water while staring out the kitchen window at the frosted sunset, then retreated to his bedroom to lick his wounds. This time, instead of letting himself collapse into unconsciousness, he pulled out his little book. The hospital bracelet, the picture of Bae's smiling face, the flyer from the library, his list…and the endless tally-marks, counting down a life not worth living.

Gold bit his tongue over his son's name and made his check to mark off another day without his little boy.

Then, almost fearfully, he flipped to that last page and ran his finger across that final item.

Going on three days since he'd talked to her. But tomorrow was a volunteering day, so he'd finally get to see her. He'd nearly made it. He imagined that she'd probably finished reading the books he'd given her by now. She'd want to talk about them. He'd get to sit at his customary table, his hands busy with needle and thread, and listen to her voice rolling over him like warm blankets and soft laughter.

Tomorrow evening. He could make it until then.

Gold closed the book and set it back in its little drawer. He was just reaching to pull the covers over his legs, wondering if he could sleep again, when there was a knock on his door.

For a long moment, he didn't move.

A knock. The late hour. The unexpectedness of it.

The porchlight outside. Glowing against the dark.

Gold stumbled out of bed, scrabbling for his cane, and rushed downstairs as fast as his bad ankle could take him. But once there, staring at the form shadowed through the stained glass, he froze.

It would be bad news. The police never knocked at the door this late with good news.

A hundred terrible, grisly, catastrophic fates tumbled through his mind.

His boy was dead. He'd died years ago. He died mere weeks ago. They'd found his body. It had been dug up. It had washed ashore. His son was alive but brainwashed by Malcolm and he hated Gold, never wanted to see him again, had run away of his own accord…

Gold pulled the door open, his son's name on his lips—and stared.

"Hey," Belle said. She bit her lip and shifted on her feet. "I hope you don't mind that I stopped by. I just…you didn't open the shop or answer your phone, and I thought maybe I'd given you that cold I had, and I thought I'd…"

Belatedly, he realized she was carrying a canvas tote stuffed full with items he could probably recognize if he could only tear his eyes from hers to give it a moment's attention.

"Are you sick?" she asked, her brow furrowing as she studied him, and only then did he remember that he was dressed in pajamas, that he'd left his robe upstairs, that his feet were bare, the scars twisting down from his mangled ankle clearly visible, and that he'd spent most of the last twenty-four hours either sobbing or sleeping under the daze of heavy medication.

He was, abruptly, very tempted to slam the door in Belle's face and pretend this had never happened.

In fact, he was millimeters from doing that exact thing when Belle shivered. It was tiny, she didn't make a big deal out of it, but in his current state of undress, Gold could feel just how frigid the temperature was outside.

And Belle didn't have a car.

She'd walked here.

Instantly, he reached out and took the sack from her fingers—frozen through, even with her gloves—and then ushered her inside to shut the door behind her.

Belatedly, he realized that she was less than a foot away from the cabinet with the gun.

Panic lodged in his throat, and suddenly frantic, Gold curled his hand around her elbow and tugged her farther into the house, down a hallway he seldom went, into a living room the maid kept clean.

"There's a blanket draped over the back of the couch," he said, his voice gritty from disuse, throat hoarse from wracking sobs. He limped over to the fireplace and quickly started a fire, building it up with the wood kept neatly in its place. How long had it been since he'd last knelt at this hearth? Even when Bae grew older and more responsible, Gold had been terrified of an accident with the flames and they'd mostly kept themselves to the back of the house.

But now, looking over his shoulder to see Belle sitting on the couch a few feet away, holding her hands to the fire, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her hair gilded with snow, her cheeks flushed with returning warmth…now, he wondered that he didn't use this room all the time. There was a coziness to it, a bright glow that took his breath away and made him brave sitting on the coffee table in front of Belle.

"May I?" he asked softly with a gesture to her feet.

After a beat of hesitation, Belle slid her feet from the boots she was—thankfully—wearing and into his lap. Gold massaged heat and feeling back into her slender arches, her tiny toes, and wondered at the intimacy of the act.

"Tea," he surprised them both by blurting out. "Tea will warm you up. I'll be right back."

His ankle screamed at him again by the time he hurried upstairs to grab his robe and slippers—only narrowly talking himself out of delaying long enough to dress in a full suit—then rushed to the kitchen to brew a pot of tea. He couldn't be bothered with the pain. Belle was here, here, and cold, and waiting for him, and…

He set the tray down for a moment to still the sudden tremors in his hands. Then, determinedly, he added a plate of biscuits to the tray and carried it in to Belle.

She watched him come, her eyes so blue even with the reflected brilliance of the flames dancing in them. He thought she wanted to jump up and help him, but a warning look from him had her settling back into place. From their shared meals, he knew she preferred her tea with a bit of milk and just a hint of sugar, and he was careful with the cup he handed her.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly.

Gold stared down at his own tea, unable to remember if he'd already added the sugar or not. A sip would be enough to let him know that, but then he'd have to lift the cup to his mouth—and Belle's hand was so soft on his that he couldn't risk dislodging her.

"I'm fine," he said. "You really didn't have to take the trouble of coming all the way out here, I—"

"I wanted to," she said, her voice firm, her touch gentle. "You didn't talk to me yesterday. Or the day before." Suddenly, her cheeks flushed pink and she let her hand fall back to curl around her own cup. "I know…I know you don't always have to talk to me, but…well, I did say I'd help you, right?"

Wincing, Gold tried to set his cup down. It glanced off the edge of the table and fell to the rug beneath his slippered feet. With a muttered exclamation, he bent and dropped some napkins over the mess, but before he could pick up the cup, Belle was scooting forward on the couch, setting her own tea aside, nudging him to look at her.

"Something happened," she said. "I can tell. We're friends, remember? If it's anything I can help with, Rumple, please, let me."

"It's nothing." But he couldn't look up and meet her eyes. Couldn't lie straight to her face.

"Rumple," she said again. Just that. His name, in her voice, bothered to be spoken at all, caressed in a soft and affectionate way it had never been spoken before, not even by his wife.

"I don't want to be a bother," he said, stiffly. "I don't want to drag you into this. You deserve better than to be at the beck and call of some old, crippled monster who can't make it through the days without a safety net."

"Maybe," she said, and despite himself, he flinched. But then, a mere second later, she was taking his hands in hers, pulling them to rest, palm-up, on her thighs as she played her fingers over the contours of his gnarled and calloused hands. "But that's not what you are, Rumple. You know what I see when I look at you? I see a man who is afraid to care about anyone because he cares with his whole heart. I see a man who's persevered and excelled in a life that's tried only to beat him down. And I see a man who can't see himself clearly and has no idea that he's an excellent friend, a wonderful conversationalist, a talented book-mender, a fascinating storyteller—all in all, someone well worth knowing. Someone I am more than delighted to spend time with…every day, even, if he wanted that too."

Gold stared at her. She was small, and so breakable, so fragile, so pretty, but as brave as any knight, fearless and indomitable and kind and everything he'd never be. But oh, did he love basking so near to these heroic, admirable traits all bound up in this one bright soul.

"I want that," he said, brave enough to confess, even if only in a whisper, because maybe she had courage enough that he could steal just a piece of it for himself.

Belle's smile lit the room. "I'm cold," she announced suddenly.

And just like that, she tugged at him until he half-fell from the coffee table nearly into her lap. He thought she was blushing, but if so, she hid it by snuggling into his side and burrowing into him as she draped the blanket over them both.

"I love watching the flames," she said, almost drowsily. "Don't you?"

"Yes," he managed, but his eyes were locked on the way the crackling fire played light and shadows over her skin, set off a glow in her hooded eyes, highlighted the differences in texture and color between her hand and his, intertwined on his lap, half-covered by the blanket.

The last of the chill from spending the night in the cellar seeped away as Belle drove the darkness back all around them.

Maybe, he dared to think, maybe he wouldn't drag her down with him. Maybe instead of a buoy, she was a lighthouse, guiding him safely to shore between jagged rocks and eddying riptides.

When he roused from his half-slumber to realize that Belle was asleep and sagging against him in a position that looked far from comfortable, Gold reluctantly tried to shake her awake. He didn't look forward to the cold drive to the library to get her home, but there was no way he'd let her walk all that way. And anyway, even if he got frostbite, he would hardly begrudge some few more moments in her company.

"Belle," he murmured. "Belle, you should probably get home."

"Hmm?" Her eyes fluttered, and Gold froze as she shifted so that her breaths feathered over his throat.

On second thought, it was very late. He didn't want Belle to get chilled. She could sleep here. There were three guest bedrooms scattered through the house, but the couch was comfortable and he'd find another blanket to tuck over her.

And she'd be here in the morning. A bright ray of sunlight in his living room.

A strange sensation permeated his chest, a sharp twisting, as if his heart were literally moving in his chest, shaking loose of its overgrown and cobwebbed place, waking and stirring and making more room for its inevitable growth, its burgeoning blooms.

Gold shook his head free of the fanciful thoughts and set his attention to sliding out from under Belle.

"Rumple?" she asked, sleepily, as soon as he made it to his feet.

"Shh, just sleep," he said. Without his conscious direction, his hand fell to smooth her hair back from her eyes as she nestled into the warmth he'd left behind on the couch. "Good night, Belle."

"Night, Rumple," she breathed, and his throat tightened.

Tempting as it was to just sit there and watch her sleep—content, unafraid, in his presence, in his house, among all his things—Gold made himself gather the tray of tea things to take back to the kitchen. He found the cup he'd dropped knocked under the coffee table. There was a chip in its rim, and he felt himself smiling as he ran his thumb along the small flaw.

For the first time in ages, when he headed upstairs to his room, Gold didn't even spare a second thought for the cabinet in the entryway.

He slept as soon as his head hit the pillow, and his dreams were blurred, hazy things full of warmth and brightness and an accented voice crooning, "Rumple…"

Two days later, at the shop, Gold was staring at a necklace he'd nearly finished untangling when his phone rang. Feeling his lips curve up in an automatic smile—the first he could remember forming so easily in years—he answered immediately, sure it was Belle.

"Gold," David said on the other end of the line. "I'm with Phillip in Boston. There was a raid last night on one of the locations you told us about. I…I think you should sit down."