A/N: To be quite honest, I'm not at all pleased with this fic. It seemed like such a wonderful idea in my head, then three days of writing and a crapload of college stress later, I'm just glad it's completed. I hope at least someone enjoys it.

Disclaimer: I do not own OUAT. Amazing people do.

He hobbled down the staircase, completely oblivious to the excruciating pain resounding in his bad leg. That pain was nothing, absolutely nothing, to the crippling grief he had known every day without her.

At the bottom of the stairs, he used the front desk as a means of support, knocked the head nurse unconscious with his cane, and stole her keys.

Was it the third cell on the left, or the fourth? Mind racing faster than his body could carry him, he struggled to remember "Regina's" information. Any moment now she would escape the binds and inform the authorities of his intentions of breaking and entering into a secret mental ward.

Recalling through his frantic memory that it was most certainly the third door, he lunged at the lock and thrust open the door.

She was there.

She was broken and hollow, but she was there.

And, by all the power in the world, was she beautiful.

Breath and strength abandoned him, and he collapsed against the nearest wall.

His mind waged war with itself. Every inch of him desperately craved her touch, her smile. But her wary body language and the memory of their last encounter held him back.

Before he could form any words, she rose from her cot, slowly, as if movement had become foreign to her. He watched in disbelief as she shakily made her way to him. Eyes filled with wonder, her hands brushed his face before she used them in a weak attempt to support him. He shook under her touch.

Gold let out a breathy laugh. "The lame helping the lame, eh, dearie?"

She opened her mouth and he closed his eyes, bracing himself to hear the voice he only dared himself to imagine in his most wild fantasies.

But no voice came.

Horror occupied his face as he opened his eyes and watched her grasp her throat in an effort to communicate that she would not speak. She was unable to speak.

Choking back bile and rage, he cursed whoever was responsible for depriving him of this part of her.

He thrust his hand into his coat pocket and fumbled around until he found what he desired.

"Here," he said, handing her the pen and small pad of paper. "I always keep them with me. Now, hurry, we haven't got much time to get you out of this prison."

Before he could hobble any closer to the door, she caught his arm and squeezed it, holding up to him the words she had hastily scrawled on the pad of paper.

You're real.

His heart dropped, and he dared to lift a hand to her face.

"You—you remember me?"

Then pen blurred across the paper.

They locked me in a tower and tried to beat the memory of you out of me. They told me you were a dream sent to me by devils. I wouldn't believe it. I couldn't. They said they would stop if only I would admit that you did not exist. I would not. I let them whip me without protest. Knowing you did not love me would have been bearable, but knowing you loved me but would not have me was a truth too painful to deny. The queen visited me and gave me a potion. She said it would put me into a sleep so deep my father would think I was dead, take me out of the tower, and throw me into the river. I took it without question. It did what she said, but when I came to, I found it burned and scarred my throat, forever leaving me mute. More than that, I woke up in the queen's custody. She kept me under tighter security than I had ever known. She said it was just an extra precaution to keep me from anyone hearing what I have to say. Even when the black cloud of the curse swallowed everything and the walls changed, she said the same thing.

"You knew who you were after the curse?"

Belle nodded.

Had he not been wholly focused on the safety of the beauty in front of him, Gold would have hunted down Regina and beaten her senseless for her reckless determination to maintain her childish revenge and the price it had cost him.

Finding strength in pain, he stood without the support of the wall and grasped Belle's hand. She wrote briefly this time.

Where are you taking me?

He managed a half-smile. "Home, dearie. I'm taking you home."

Using each other for support, they gracelessly found their way to the cramped atrium of the psychiatric ward. The steps up to the main ward of the Mills Memorial Hospital drained Belle of all energy and set Gold's bad leg ablaze. At the top of the stairs sat a rickety wheelchair that Gold offered to Belle and she took without hesitation. Thus, when they strolled through the ward and to the courtyard, the nurses thought nothing of it except how kind it was of Mr. Gold to pay a visit to that poor, beautiful patient.

But like ten thousand banshees, the sirens began to scream before they made it halfway out of the parking lot. Belle shrunk into the wheelchair. The sound sprinted through her, rattling her ribcage and stirring memories of her imprisonment.

"Just a little farther, Belle," he said in an attempt to quell his own desperation.

Rounding the corner to where he parked his car, there, with that disgusting, smug smile on her face, stood the object of his present hatred.

Regina.

"A little hasty for a midnight stroll, don't you think, Rumple? And, my, my, my, is that a patient you're trying to sneak out with?"

Police sirens echoed in the distance. Ever since Emma became sheriff, the police response time had been cut in half.

"You," he spat as he moved protectively in front of Belle, "you set the alarm. You told me where she was, because you knew I'd go after her."

"Well, to be honest, it was too good to resist. How many opportunities to get you both out of Storybrooke are going to be this easy?"

"What?" Confusion wrinkled Gold's face.

"Once I found out you knew who you were, I knew I had to kill you, silence you, or exile you. Killing you would be too messy; especially now that Miss Swan is around. Even if I did silence you like a silenced your pretty, little pet," Gold tensed at her reference to Belle, "you would find some way to speak. You have enough influence to not remain locked up for long. So, exiling you it is. I knew your servant would come in handy one day, which is why I refrained from killing her. It's simple, really: now that the whole town is going to know you kidnapped a hospital patient and the police will be hunting for the both of you, you are to take her and run as far away as you can. After awhile, you settle down and have the life you always regretted giving up."

Gold turned to look at Belle; the one he could finally call his Belle, if only he ran away. He was good at running away.

But a memory thrust itself to the forefront of his mind.

"You're a coward, Rumpelstiltskin."

The condemnation and pain contained in those brief seconds remained forever on his mind from the moment she walked out his doors. He would not, could not, remain a coward in his beloved's eyes.

Gold kept his eyes on Belle as he said his next words.

"And if we choose not to bow to your will? If we choose not to run away?"

The crisp click of cold metal answered him. He whirled around to behold Regina clutching a small, black handgun.

"If you choose to remain, we default back to door number two: I shoot her and frame you. You get shipped off to the state penitentiary where no one will give a damn what you say about Storybrooke."

"Hardly seems foolproof, does it? You're getting sloppy—"

"Don't think you can get away with stalling. You have exactly ten seconds to get in your car or get your girl shot."

"Perhaps a deal can be struck—"

"No deals. Eight seconds."

All the resolve Gold sought resided in Belle's determined eyes. After she branded him a coward, he lived only in replays of that moment. Every time he found new and daring ways to prove her wrong. True redemption lay in front of him, and he'd be damned if he didn't take it.

He charged at Regina, cane raised in a blaze of glory befitting a prince charming that, in an earlier time, would have been mocked by Gold. He only prayed that the element of surprise would buy Belle enough time to run to safety.

Regina's face held surprise for a fraction of a second before it twisted into sick pleasure. She pointed the gun at Gold, and pulled the trigger.

He fell faster than anticipated, and the unforgiving contact with the uneven pavement caused him more pain than the bullet lodged in his bad leg.

While facedown in the asphalt, he heard another heart-wrenching shot and the horrid noise of all the air leaving one's lungs.

No! Not her! Not Belle!

Not wanting to open his eyes, he felt two sets of arms lifted him from the ground and into the wheelchair.

A new voice reached his ears. "You need medical attention. Now."

He warily opened his eyes to the stern, but concerned sheriff.

"Your response time really did get cut in half," he forced at her through gritted teeth.

And standing beside her was his Belle, perfect and unharmed.

"Well, Madame Mayor," Emma said, crouching next to the bloodstained body of Regina, "this is going to be hard to explain to Henry."

"Miss Swan."

Emma turned to find Mr. Gold and the tragically beautiful patient embraced, foreheads touching.

"Miss Swan, I believe you owe me a favor."

"Yes?" she asked warily.

"Take her to my home. Do not been seen. Make sure she is comfortable and then leave. Tell no one of her."

"But—"

"I'm sure you would love to explain to Ashley the lack of legality in the custody of her child if you fail to comply?" Even when crucially wounded, he was forever a salesman.

"Fine." Emma's voice was harsh, but her guiding hands were soft on Belle's shoulders.

Gold sat back in the wheelchair and waited for more officials to arrive to take him back to the hospital.

He smiled.

She had a home, finally, and it was with him.

A/N: I considered many endings, actually. But, yeah, not as pleased with this one as I was with my first Rumbelle oneshot. Oh, well. I kinda want to write something fluffy next.

Please review. It takes two seconds and it makes me happy for life. Or a day. But it only takes you two seconds ;-)