Belle met the retinue of cops, paramedics, and distraught young man at the doors of the hospital. She saw them pull up, got out of her own car to run toward them, stumbled, and then by the time she reached the doors, they were already through, already wheeling that stretcher with the small, bloody figure deeper into the hospital.

"Rumple!" she cried. "Rumple! Where are you taking him!"

It was Baelfire's hand on her shoulder that kept her from throwing herself after them. The double doors swung shut between her and Rumple, and only then did she realize she'd been screaming his name where anyone could hear it.

"He's going to be okay," Baelfire told her.

Belle blinked her tears away and stared fiercely at him, desperate to know the truth. She'd have been more confident if he weren't fighting his own tears. His jaw was clenched so tightly she could see a muscle working along the edge of his cheek.

There was blood on his hands. On his shoulder—exactly where his father's head might have lolled in a moment of weakness. Filled to overwhelming with a weakness that would destroy her, Belle surged up in a show of strength and wrapped this too-young man in a fierce embrace.

"You're okay," she whispered. "I'm so glad you're okay. Are you okay?"

"Fine," Baelfire said, but he didn't meet her eyes. Instead, he busied himself finding out which floor his father was being held at, leading Belle up to the intensive care unit, finding them a quiet, out-of-the-way spot—a set of chairs set near a vending machine, a coffee machine, and a table, surrounded by artwork Belle couldn't focus on.

Belle let him have the distraction, all the while wishing she could distract herself. She felt so cold, and even wrapping her arms around her torso didn't generate any heat. A whiff of cold air, pine needles, and something that made her think, poignantly, of Rumple preceded the feel of a coat being draped over her shoulders.

"You looked cold," Baelfire mumbled, looking uncomfortable as he shrugged his shoulders. Without the too-large coat and ever-present scarf to shrug into, she realized that he was a lot broader than she'd really noticed.

"Thank you." Belle burrowed into the coat's warmth and tried to pinpoint what exactly about it made her think of Rumple. She couldn't help but wonder if Rumple had hugged his son, out at the cabin in the middle of the woods he'd invited her to, or if it was only because Baelfire had held his papa upright until the paramedics could get to him.

"Papa talks to you?" Baelfire suddenly blurted. "I mean…he tells you stuff, right? You know his name and I didn't think he ever told anyone that."

"I won a little contest we had," she murmured as her heart twisted in her chest at the reminder of better, quieter days. Or had they been better? Rumple had still been going back home every night, after all, still making his tally-marks and holding some form of weapon in his hand while he contemplated an end to everything. Belle had still been lying to herself about how much progress she'd made leaving Boston and settling here, still lying to her friends about what really mattered in her life.

So not better days, but what did it matter? Why had any of it mattered if Rumple were still going to end up here, fighting for his life, and she'd have to run to another planet to escape the feeling of helplessness tying her down?

"No," Baelfire said. "If he told you, then he wanted to tell you. Papa's good at finding loopholes to wriggle out of."

Belle thought of that moment with just them, in the library, of how lonely she'd been and how isolated she now knew Rumple had been, and she imagined that he had wanted to tell her. He'd wanted someone to care just like she'd wanted someone to see her.

The memory of Rumple's last words to her—that warmth that thawed every last inch of her heart as he described her as a hero—made tears sting the backs of her eyes. She'd never be able to bear it if those truly had been their last words.

"He talks to me," she whispered, and wondered if Baelfire knew about his father's list. About the thoughts that had dominated his papa's mind for all the years he'd been missing. About the many ways they both could have lost Rumple before they even knew how much that would shatter them.

"Did he ever mention…" Baelfire scrubbed a hand back through his hair, then steepled his hands over his mouth. "Did he say anything about…"

"What is it?" Belle asked. His evident distress gave her something to focus on aside from her terror at what was happening behind closed doors.

"Papa doesn't talk to me!" Baelfire snapped. "I thought he did. He told me…so much…at the cabin. But the whole time…he's known since the first time I saw Emma at Granny's—he had to have—but he didn't say anything!"

"Baelfire?"

"And Pan?! Not a single word. We were in Boston for days while I told the police everything I knew about that monster, and the whole time…all along, he could have…" Baelfire shook his head. "He knew so much more than me. He could have helped. He could have let me know I wasn't going through it alone. I could have been there for him!" And suddenly he looked sick. "They thought they killed him. Detective Prince came in and told us that they'd killed Pan, and Papa didn't say anything."

"I don't understand."

Baelfire looked at her, and for all the anger in his voice, his eyes blazed with hurt instead. "Pan!" he spat. "Malcolm—Papa's his son."

A cold stone lodged in the pit of Belle's stomach. Bae's furious ramblings reminded her of that day, so many months ago now, clear back in spring, when he'd called late to give her an update. He'd sounded wrecked, and Belle had thought it was because of the stress, the changes in Bae, but now she wondered if it wasn't because he was still processing that the head of the Neverland gang—his father—had been killed in a firefight.

And hadn't she said something about a father-son trip in that very conversation? All while Rumple had just lost his own father.

Well…thought he had.

Until tonight. When he'd had to pull the trigger himself.

No one had told Belle that straight-out, but she'd been on the phone during the beginning stages of that altercation in his house. She'd heard enough to know, when the phone went dead with a heavy thump, that she'd better call the police. And she knew that a coroner had been sent to that house where she'd slept over and been woken by slow, hazy kisses to look up into warm, awestruck brown eyes. She knew that there had been a gun, and a trigger pulled, a bullet fired, and blood on Bae's hands and on his shoes.

Rumple had killed his own father. To save his son. No thought to what the personal cost might be.

"Rumple did help," Belle said, her voice sounding like it came from a thousand miles away. "When he found out that Pan might have you, he went to Boston and told them everything he knew. That's how they knew what safehouses to raid—and how they found you. But the information you had on the gang, it was newer."

Baelfire fell silent.

"He loves you more than anything," Belle said, and this at least she was certain of. "He puts you first, always."

"I know," Baelfire said quietly, and finally, he slumped into the chair beside her. "I know he does."

There was silence for a long while.

"Belle," he said just when she'd thought she might scream at the sounds of monitors and carts and doors opening and closing around her, people bustling to and fro, and not a one of them coming to her with any news.

"Yeah?"

"Do you know a little three year old boy in town called Henry?"

Belle blinked at the non sequitur. "Henry Mills? The Mayor's son?"

Baelfire dropped his face into his hands and muttered something like, "Of course it is."

"Baelfire?"

"You know Papa arranged that adoption? He knew Henry was actually David Nolan's grandson and he said he owed him for something."

Belle's eyes widened. "He's Emma's son?" she asked.

And Baelfire flinched. "Yeah."

Suddenly, everything Rumple had been hinting at on the phone before the disaster became clear.

Baelfire's son. Rumple's grandson.

"He's so smart," Belle said with the hint of a smile. She should have known, maybe. The same smile. Similar cleverness. The way the sight of him had felled Rumple so spectacularly at that first Story Hour she'd miscalculated on so badly. "He's teaching himself to read. He loves books—never misses a single Story Hour. And so cute."

Every word made Baelfire's shoulders draw in tighter. "Yeah?" he asked hoarsely. For all the pain he was in, she could tell he was hanging on every revelation about his son, and Belle thought that he'd more than likely learned how to love from his father, which meant Henry was about to be the most loved boy in existence. With both Baelfire and Rumple as his family, not to mention his mother's side of the family and Mayor Mills herself, there wouldn't be a more adored little boy.

For her part, Belle thought of Rumple, so alone and so unnoticed by everyone in town, but now with so many people to love him. Her and his son and Henry and maybe Emma, eventually, and the Nolans, and Belle's friends who'd been so impressed with him—even if only, at first, to prove to Belle that she hadn't needed to lie to protect him from them.

His world had opened up so much…if only he'd wake up to come to terms with it.

But the police came before a doctor did.

Baelfire tensed at the sight of Graham before he squared his shoulders and stood up. "I'll deal with them," he said. "You stay here for when they let you in."

"Baelfire!" Belle caught his sleeve. "Could you… I know this is a lot to ask, maybe, but could you tell the people here to keep me informed?"

He didn't get it at first, but after a minute, Baelfire's eyes narrowed in realization.

Belle wasn't family. She wasn't a significant other. According to records, she was no one and thus, could easily be escorted out of the hospital, left on the outside looking in.

"I'll tell them," Baelfire said.

"If you need help talking to the police—"

"I've got this," he said, and she didn't think he'd ever looked more grown up. "You just make sure Papa doesn't wake up alone."

With that, Belle let him go, and hoped Rumple wouldn't hold it against her too badly.

They finally let her into his room. He looked so small, lying there in a hospital bed with IVs taped to his hand and wires trailing here and there. But he breathed and that was the important thing, so Belle determinedly ignored tattered memories of her mother's last days and settled herself in the chair she moved directly to his side.

"I'm here, Rumple," she said. She clasped his hand, oh so carefully, between both of hers and touched the callous built there, she assumed, from the nervous gesture he had of rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. He'd be doing it now, she knew, if he were awake. If he saw that Baelfire wasn't there. If he noticed the tears in her eyes.

They'd done scans of his chest and abdomen, worried about internal bruising. It could have been a lot worse. She knew that. If she hadn't before, seeing the bruises discoloring his face and arms would have quickly disabused her of any notion other than that he'd been beaten to within an inch of his life. Dr. Whale assured her that there were no punctured organs, that two of his ribs were slightly cracked but not dangerously so, that they could only monitor him to ensure none of the bruising on his organs was worse than it seemed.

But he wouldn't wake up.

"It's not unusual," Dr. Whale had told her before allowing her into the room. "Humans have a capacity for shutting down when the world becomes too much. Sleeping his way through today, or even a couple days, is hardly the worst way his mind could choose to disassociate."

Seeing as she knew some of Rumple's other, more self-destructive coping mechanisms, she shouldn't mind that he kept sleeping even with her hands wrapped around his. But she did. She wanted him to wake up. She wanted him to look at her. She wanted him to smile to see her. She wanted him to be happy and for that happiness to be, even if only partly, because of her.

Selfish, maybe, but honest, and Belle was trying hard not to lie to herself anymore.

She was selfish in love, and she wanted more than she probably deserved, and she would fight and burn and kill to keep Rumple from being hurt even just for a moment, and none of those were heroic traits—none of them were worthy of the truly good characters in the books she loved so well—but Belle didn't care.

Rumple was hers and if he could soften his aloof persona for her, maybe she could lean into her non-heroic traits for him.

"I'm here," she said again. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying, Rumple, you hear me? You're never going to get rid of me. I'm going to be with you forever."

But Rumple didn't like open-ended promises. No collateral. No earnest. No loopholes. There wasn't enough assurance in that for his insecure soul. He liked bargains and deals and quid per quo. Signatures and consequences and the sure knowledge of what he was owed and when and how it would be paid.

"In return," she said, hunching over the bed, closer to him, "you have to promise to wake up. Okay? You have to save me. You can't leave me alone. I'm…I can't do it. Not again. I need you. So you save me from the life I was trapped in—and I'll stay with you. Forever."

There was too much space between them. She stood up to hover over him, bent so close she was nearly lying atop him. Her lips pressed, fever-hot, against his cool brow. A light touch, for all her fervor, so she wouldn't aggravate his bruises. He smelled of blood and antiseptic and it made her heart squeeze tight in her chest.

"You can trust me," Belle whispered. "I won't break my side of the deal. How could I? How, when staying with you is the only thing that can make me happy?"

And she dropped a kiss, quick and chaste and very nearly shy, for all that they'd shared together, on his lips.

But still, he didn't wake.

It was late in the night—or perhaps early in the morning—when Rumple finally stirred in the bed. Belle, half-dozing, jolted up immediately, though she bit her lip to keep from crying his name lest she scare him right back into slumber.

Rumple's eyes fluttered several times before he finally, half-lidded, examined the room around him. A twitch of his finger, warm against her palm, seemed to inform him he wasn't alone, but before he could more than frown, Belle had leaned forward and pressed his hand against her breastbone.

"Rumple?" she said, very quietly.

His lips curved up, ever so slightly, and she didn't think she imagined the increased pressure on her hand where she held his. "Belle," he breathed. It was little more than a breath of air shaped on his lips, but it brought tears stinging to her eyes.

"I'm here," she said. "I'm here and Baelfire's safe and you're okay."

A tremor shook his form, a shadow over his face, but he didn't retreat. "Belle," he said again, this time with enough weight to it for her to realize how hoarse he sounded. Quickly, she reached for the cup they'd left for him, filled with half-melted ice cubes. She helped him sip from the straw and suck on a few pieces of ice before she began, slowly, to fill him in.

"He's okay?" Rumple asked every time she mentioned Baelfire's name, but every time she reiterated that he was, Rumple seemed more morose.

She should have known that as soon as the first nurse entered the room, Rumple would already be making designs to leave the hospital. He was too vulnerable here, his underbelly left exposed in view of too many people he didn't trust. She made a token protest, insistent that he get the best care, but then turned her attention to facilitating his immediate return home. The paperwork was best left in his hands, but Belle was able to dash to his house and pick up a change of clothing for him.

The sight of the front foyer of his house stopped her in her tracks.

She supposed, for such a terrible ordeal, there wasn't a lot to show for it. But Belle had only ever seen the place pristine and cozy and lived in. The sight of wooden splinters from the cracked banister lying on the floor before a cabinet with a drawer hanging askew, tape left crooked on walls where the police had done their crime scene photos, and Rumple's bag lying half-discarded against the wall at the bottom of the stairs…it brought it all home to Belle.

In a matter of moments, just hours earlier, she could have lost him. He could be gone.

Any evening he left her and came home alone, walked past that cabinet with the drawer that was now empty, she could have lost him.

A single pull of the trigger. A last bit of malicious intent from his own father. A wrong step on the staircase.

Any of it could take Rumple away from her.

In that moment, with that realization, Belle nearly collapsed. It seemed like such a terrible, awful risk, binding her heart to a fragile life, stitching her future happiness to the soul of a man only half-tied here himself.

And yet…she wouldn't take it back. His shy smiles…his tentative touch…his desperate kisses…his voice as he said her name and called her beautiful… No, she wouldn't change a single thing, no matter what the cost.

Belle tidied up as much as she could, finding a broom and sweeping up the detritus, retrieving soap and water and washing away the blood stains, wrapping tape over the splintered banister so it wouldn't stab any careless hand, then taking Rumple's bag up to his room. The smell of him surrounded her, and Belle had to stand completely still for a moment to fight back her tears.

Rumple was waiting for her.

Quickly, she unpacked his bag for him as best she could, then selected a clean suit for him. A tie, cufflinks, a pocket kerchief, a belt. Each another piece of his armor that kept him upright and fighting another day. Belle wouldn't strip it from him, not for anything.

When she returned to the hospital, Rumple was sitting in a wheelchair in the lobby, his face set in a forbidding scowl. Belle delayed only long enough to take in the few instructions Dr. Whale had for him, and then she walked at his side—she let a nurse take the brunt of his displeasure at being forced into the wheelchair—and then helped him into the passenger seat.

"I'm sure I could drive," he grumbled, but Belle only reminded him to put on his seatbelt before starting the car.

They were mostly quiet on the drive home. Rumple was hurting, Belle could tell, and she was still reeling from how close she'd come to having a very different day today. It wasn't until she'd parked in his driveway and turned the car off that Rumple finally said anything.

"Thank you, Belle. You shouldn't have to always be taking care of me like this."

"I thought we talked about this," she said with an attempt to put some playfulness in her voice. "I like taking care of you. It helps me."

Rumple didn't meet her eyes. He unclicked his seatbelt and opened the car door. Hurriedly, Belle slipped from the car and hurried around to his side. But aside from a grimace of pain on the stairs, Rumple was able to make it inside the house. He noticed her cleaning efforts, she was sure, and the open drawer—empty of the gun—but instead of saying anything, he made his way back to the kitchen. Feeling as if she were walking on eggshells, Belle settled herself at the bar and let him make her a cup of tea. The heat of it stung her fingers as she curled her hands around the porcelain, and only when Rumple settled next to hers did she notice the chip in his own cup.

"Careful," she said softly. "You'll cut yourself."

"This is my favorite cup," Rumple admitted in a quiet voice.

Belle couldn't see any difference between his and hers save for that chip.

"You don't remember?" Rumple looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "It was the first time you came here. You were worried about me. You were freezing and scared, I think, but you came anyway."

"I remember," Belle said. "It's the first time I got to sit close to you. To really touch you."

His cheeks were red, his hair hiding his eyes as he ran his finger over that chip. "I dropped the cup. When you touched me. You told me…"

"What?" she whispered. She knew, at least the gist of it, but she wanted so badly to know what words of hers had stuck with him so closely.

"You told me I was someone worth knowing." Rumple let out a long sigh that sounded almost wistful. "It's the first time anyone ever said anything like that to me. But you…you meant it. You said you'd love to spend time with me. That's…that's the first time I let myself think that this…this thing between us…was mutual. That you wanted to get to know me almost as much as I wanted to get to know you."

"Definitely as much," Belle corrected. She laid her hand, gentle as if trying not to startle a butterfly, over his, both of them cradling that chipped cup. "I love the cup too."

He smiled, almost helplessly, and her name slipped from his lips as if he didn't even notice it, all bound up with his breath. As if she were as much his oxygen as he was her heartbeat. And maybe it wasn't as scary tying herself to a fragile life when he'd tied his own life to her. They could keep each other alive and safe and happy. Provide each other a safe place to land.

"I was so scared," she admitted, barely loud enough to be heard. "I don't think I could bear it if anything happened to you."

"I'm here," Rumple said, and he let go of the cup. Turned in his seat. Tugged her close. Belle went willingly, folding herself up against his chest, letting his arms enfold her.

"I'm here too," she said. "I'm sorry I ever made you doubt that. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. You're amazing and I don't ever want to face life without you."

A shudder worked its way across his frame, and Belle slid her arms around his waist and squeezed him, caught between tenderness and ferocity.

"Oh, my beautiful Belle," he murmured, and the last of her control snapped.

There were tears in her eyes as she tilted her face up, stinging in her vision as she blindly searched for his lips. His palm cradled her cheek and brought her lips more fully against his, and she opened her mouth and swallowed him down as deeply as he'd let her.

His cane clattered to the floor. Her tea spilled over the bar top. Her shoes tripped her as she raised to her tiptoes to taste every millimeter of his mouth, to savor the textures of his tongue and teeth and the roof of his mouth. His hand spasmed more tightly over the small of her back, around her hip, pressing her tightly to him.

A dim thought about his ribs, the sharp refusal to ever hurt him again, made Belle pull back. But just enough to take his hand. Just enough to lead him, trembling and eager and awed, up the stairs and to his bedroom. His scent once more enveloped her, his hands were steady and deft as he unbuttoned her shirt, unzipped her skirt, unclasped her bra, divested her of everything keeping them apart. Her own hands shook as she undressed him in turn, but she smiled and bit her lip and tried not to cry at the wonder of having him here.

He was perfect and wonderful and hers. It seemed like a miracle that they had met, that he was as intrigued by her, that their interest was mutual—that they'd both made it here, together, wanting the same things, meeting in the middle. She'd never understood the meaning of the word kismet like she did now, kissing her way up from his sensitive throat, along the lines of his stubble, over his fluttering eyes, and back to his hot mouth.

"Rumple," she whimpered, and he answered with a searing kiss that left her panting and restless. Still, she was careful as she guided him down onto the bed. When he groaned with impatience and reached for her, she batted his hands away.

"I said that I'd kiss you and not hurt you," she murmured. "Let me just take care of you."

He helped her balance as she crawled over him, his hands warm anchors that kept her grounded, gave her purpose, prevented her from just drifting away with whatever newest impulse hit her.

"I love you," she whispered, her hair a curtain all around them, her hands tracing the contours of his flesh, her whole being aligning in rhythm to match his.

His eyes were dazed and full of wonder as he looked up at her, his calloused finger so gentle as he reached up to trace her features and caress her lips until she gasped and whined and plastered herself against his chest to merge their mouths as intimately as the rest of them. The twilight cast silver shadows and red highlights from the curtains over the bed, over their clasped hands, and the last shreds of sunlight lit his face as he arched and tremored beneath her. Belle shook and gasped and felt that sunlight burst into a thousand pieces inside her before she felt her muscles turn all pliant and tensible.

Carefully, so carefully, she laid herself down at his side and draped her arm over his upper chest so she could play his hair through her fingers.

"Oh, sweetheart," Rumple said, so hoarse and disbelieving, as he turned and gathered her close. "I love you too."

They ate dinner in bed, a collection of cheese and meats, raisins and cut apples and peanut butter, any finger foods they could find in a hurry. Belle was reluctant to leave their nest where she could ensure he was still breathing and check that his heartbeat still worked whenever she liked, her mouth warm against his chest or throat to feel the steady pulse. She'd thought Rumple felt the same, and knew he did at least in part, but late that night, when they were both still breathing hard and they'd had to cast aside the sheets until the sweat cooled on their skin, she realized he was just as afraid of what waited for him outside his bed.

"Bae hasn't been back yet," he said. She could tell he hadn't meant to speak the words, but they slipped from him, betraying that corner of his heart that would always, she knew, be fixated on his son.

"He went to deal with the police for you," she offered, though she knew it wasn't enough to explain the hours of distance. Instead of beating around the bush, she decided to confront the elephant—or rather, the grandson—in the room. "He asked if there was a three year old boy in town named Henry."

Rumple betrayed no surprise.

"You know," is all he said.

"He told me," Belle admitted. And then she made his confession for him too, putting words to his fear so that they could beat it back together. "You're afraid he's going to love a new family more than you. You think he'll forget about you with more people in his heart."

"How could I not?" Rumple asked. "My mother abandoned me at birth. My father never saw me as anything but a burden he couldn't escape, one good only for taking his dissatisfaction out on. My wife left me for something better the first opportunity she got and the only other lover I took chose power over me. Why shouldn't my son realize I'm not worthy of staying for, of remembering, of holding onto?"

"He loves you," Belle said, the words escaping her before she could think them through. "I'm sorry, Rumple, but I don't think those women really loved you. But Baelfire…he does."

"And my father?" Rumple asked. "He didn't love me either, did he? Not even a little bit. Those few good memories I cherished…they meant nothing to him?"

He phrased them as questions, but Belle could hear him internalizing these truths. Turning them back on himself rather than the man who hadn't deserved Rumplestiltskin Gold in his life.

"Malcolm chose not to treasure those memories," Belle said. "He chose other things over you. And that's his fault. It's his sin, his crime, not yours. He didn't deserve you, Rumple, none of them did."

"You don't," he said quietly, his hand playing the ends of her hair between his fingers. He couldn't meet her eyes when she propped herself on an elbow to look down at him.

"I don't," she agreed. She laid her palm over his cheek and kept him from retreating from her. "I made a mistake too. But I knew it was a mistake and I regretted it and took steps to correct it. Because I do love you, more than anything, and I don't want to lose you. I want more than just a few memories to treasure. And Baelfire has that too. He has his whole childhood to look back on. Having a son himself will only remind him of all the best things about his own papa."

"You think?" Rumple asked, the fear in his eyes so strong. But not as strong as he thought it was. Rumple thought he was a coward, but Belle knew it was only because he only ever admitted to the fear. Not to the bravery that made him try again and again, even when it seemed hopeless. Not to the hope he clung to despite the whole world trying to beat it out of him. Not to the love that was the strongest, most defining thing about him.

"I know," Belle said, and she kissed him to seal the promise.

The next morning, when they descended the stairs in search of breakfast, Baelfire proved her right.

He was sitting at the dining room table, a breakfast of eggs and toast and slightly burned waffles waiting for them, and in his hand he clutched a book with a mouse on its cover.

"Hey, Papa," he said, his eyes blue rather than brown, but just as scared and brave as his father's had been the night before.

"Bae," Rumple said, and Belle let go of his arm so he could stumble forward into his son's open embrace.