A/N: Thank you to everyone who's reviewed and left kudos or favorited! I've missed the Rumbelle fandom and it's so good to be back! Also, as an aside, I've played SUPER fast and loose with the timeline of early season 2, so hopefully that doesn't bother anyone too much. Hope you all enjoy!

Disclaimer: Once again, I've used quotes from Rumbelle episodes (though probably not word perfect because I wasn't feeling motivated enough to go check them all), which were written by others-no copyright infringement is intended.

Belle is startled by the sound of the library door clicking open and then, a moment later, closed. Aside from Ruby, no one has ever entered the library to see her. She is even more startled (shocked, really) to hear the quiet tapping of a cane and then to see Rumplestiltskin come into the light. As usual, it takes her a second to reconcile the image she has in her head of her golden-skinned, dancing deal-maker with the quiet, simmering pawnbroker who stands so quietly but nonetheless possesses such force of character that Belle can't imagine anyone overlooking him (she certainly can't for all that she's been trying the past few days).

"Oh!" she says in surprise.

"Are you okay?" he asks urgently. There's worry creasing his brow, and every line of his body is tensed as if for danger.

"I'm…yes, of course. What's going on?"

"Nothing. I just…well, the town seems a bit stirred up at the moment. I thought I might…I might stop by and see how you were doing."

Behind him, through the thick library doors, Belle hears the approaching clamor of what she guesses is a mob. Lights flicker and cast long shadows across the aisles of book-filled shelves. Belle shivers, and tries not to admit even to herself just how glad she is that Rumplestiltskin has come.

"Miss Lucas hasn't been here tonight, has she?"

Belle takes in a breath as several pieces all click together in her mind. "No. I invited her over, but she said she couldn't make it tonight. David was around, though, so I assumed he'd be with her."

"Yes, better for all if the sheriff"—he sneers at the title as much as he used to at royalty—"takes care of things."

"Did you want to stay?" she asks, then bites her lip.

Too late. The invitation is already out (it appears she's no better at permanently letting go than he is).

Belle wishes she were sorry.

(She's not.)

Rumplestiltskin pauses, just as he always did when she invited him to sit with her in front of the fire or to read with her or even just to tear himself away from his spinning to take tea, but then nods. "Yes, if…if that's all right."

"Of course. I was just sorting through these books. I found them in boxes stacked up in a closet. Some of them have a bit of water damage, I'm afraid, and here, smell this—doesn't that smell like smoke?"

Rumplestiltskin's eyes gleam with sudden mischief as he raises an eyebrow at her. "Shall we make a bonfire here in the library to keep warm, then?"

"No!" She can't help the giggle that escapes her (at the memories of all the times he threatened her library while simultaneously sneaking new books in for her to find). "I suppose these books must have all narrowly escaped such a fate, then, if that's your first conclusion."

"My second guess," he says loftily, "is that a dragon made an ill-advised lair beneath the library."

"A dragon?" She smiles at him (too soft, too warm, too familiar, she thinks, but she cannot help herself, not with him so close, so funny and sweet and hers). "I suppose that must be what happened."

At his surprised look, her smile grows even wider.

"What?" she says. "You think I haven't noticed the magic here in Storybrooke? You do remember how you rescued me in the mines, don't you?"

The gleam in his eyes vanishes, eclipsed by his ever-present guilt. "I wouldn't call it 'rescue,' exactly."

"I would," she says firmly. "The key they gave me fell out of the car, you know. I wouldn't have been able to get out of those…handcuffs…without you."

Sheer rage sparks through him, running through well-worn channels, their path made easy by long habit and familiarity. Belle supposes she should feel alarmed, but she doesn't. Instead, she feels comforted. Safe. (Loved.)

It's the worst time possible for someone to barge in on them, so of course that is when Ruby bursts through the doors. "Belle!" she calls frantically. "Belle, are you here?"

"Ruby?" Belle stands from the table where she'd been perched and tries to step forward—but Rumplestiltskin is there, planted between her and her friend, all bristling menace and uncloaked danger.

"Belle, I need you to stay in the library, okay?" Ruby begins before falling silent when she catches sight of Rumplestiltskin.

"What are you doing here?" he demands coldly. "Of all the places you could go beneath a full moon, you pick the one place Belle is?"

"I wanted to make sure she stayed inside!" Ruby protests. "Belle, don't leave the library, okay?"

"Ruby." Belle slips around Rumplestiltskin to take Ruby's hand in both of hers. "Are you okay? Do you need any help? We heard the mob outside. Maybe you should stay here—I could hide you."

She doesn't need to look behind her to know that Rumplestiltskin is quivering with the force of his mute denial.

Ruby's eyes flick from Belle to Rumplestiltskin and then back. "No," she says. "I can't risk it. I'm sorry. But you'll be okay here, right? I mean," her eyes go hard as she glares at Rumplestiltskin, "the safest place for you is with Gold—right, Mr. Gold?"

In the old world, Rumplestiltskin would have tittered and mocked, manipulated and incited. Even here, as Mr. Gold, Belle has caught enough to know that his usual mode is to smirk and intimate and always, always come out on top. But he looks at Belle, standing there and watching him, and he grimaces in an approximation of a smile.

"Of course, Miss Lucas. You can rest assured that no harm will come to Belle."

Ruby narrows her eyes at that implied threat, and Belle tries to resist rolling her own at Rumplestiltskin. Though he makes no outward sign of catching her disapproval, Belle knows that he does. She can tell by the way he stays silent while she and Ruby hug, and by the way he calls after Ruby when she turns to leave.

"If you'd come to me," he says, trying to pretend as if he's not watching Belle out of the corner of his eye (she can feel the heat of his gaze, the weight of it, as she's always been able to, the reason he was never able to startle her as much as he wished with his abrupt entrances and exits), "I could have made you another hood. Perhaps, if you wish it, I can prepare one for you in time for next month."

"And the price?" Ruby asks, tense and bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Once more, Rumplestiltskin dares a sidelong look at Belle before he shakes his head. "You've done a lot for Belle. For that, I'll waive the price."

Her jaw dropping, Ruby stares at Rumplestiltskin for a long minute before she gives herself a shake and says, "I'll think about it. Stay safe, Belle. Don't leave the library."

As soon as the door closes behind her, Rumplestiltskin is moving, striding away from the spot he stood, making sure the door is closed, prowling the edges of the library—doing everything he can to pretend as if the past few moments didn't mean anything (don't show just how much he's willing to bend for love of her).

It's hard for him, Belle realizes all over again, being in love with her. Not just the fear of their love losing him his path to his son. Not just the tragedy inherent in thinking her dead for so long. Not just the grief her well-intentioned lie has obviously inflicted.

It's hard, maybe above all, for him to leash himself. To make himself less. To alter his manner and his habits and his methods and his interactions all for her sake (all because he is so afraid to lose her love).

It's hard for him to be himself in front of her when he is so utterly convinced that he is a monster. Unloved. Unlovable. Undeserving.

And she knows, doesn't she, just how hard it can be to feel all the weight of expectation and the pressure of insecurity. She knows because she never felt more weighted down than when she set out from his castle with an empty basket looped over her arm (and paradoxically, never more free than when she walked back into that castle with a basket full of heavy straw). She never felt more pressured than when he told her to leave and she did it without argument (and ironically, never felt more herself than when she determined to go back to him, to fight for their love and to wait for him to be willing to do the same).

She knows that love must be fought for, that it isn't easy or simple. But none of her books ever prepared her for just how difficult it is to stand so close to the man she loves and yet not say anything (not to make her words into chains or her hopes into shackles or her heart into a prison that he will step into willingly but nonetheless chafe against). How difficult it is to not know why her True Love cares for her but to believe that he does anyway (believe it enough to let him go free, to send him off on his quest and try not to hope too overwhelmingly that he will one day return to her as she did to him).

It's been three days since she realized that he's trying to find his son. Three days since she's spoken to him or sought him out. Three days since she's tried to make her life anew without him (not because she's angry, not because she needs space to think, but because it's what's best for him). Three days and she's so weak, because already, so easily, has she succumbed to the temptation of his presence and his smiles and his quips and even his threats and danger.

He's trying so hard for her, trying when she knows how afraid he is.

Is True Love really supposed to be this difficult?

"Belle?" Rumplestiltskin reaches for her, the merest wisp of a touch over her arm before he once more retreats (trying, reaching, changing, and all for her, all a distraction when he needs to be wholly focused on reaching his son).

It's the hardest thing Belle's ever done, not to melt forward into his embrace. To just stand there and keep herself aloof from him.

I'll fight for him, she vowed once, and now vows again. I'll never stop fighting for you.

"I'm okay," she says. "Look, Gold"—she forces herself to say the name (envisions endless spools of thread, wealth immeasurable, lying forgotten in endless rooms while Rumplestiltskin spun and spun, not to forget, no, but because he couldn't forget)—"I promise I won't leave the library. You don't have to stay."

His hands clench over the handle of his cane. "I want to," he says quietly (honesty so real it scrapes painfully against them both).

"Oh."

It'd be so much easier for both of them if they gave up now. If he walked away and let himself believe that he lost her only because her memories were ripped away. If she let him go to find the son he loves so fiercely, so eternally, and find her own happiness vicariously through the books he gave her.

Easier. Simpler. Maybe even, in the long run, happier.

But Rumplestiltskin dares to take another step closer to her. He smiles a tremulous smile at her. And he is so very, very brave.

"Maybe," he says, "we could go for a hamburger this weekend. At Granny's."

(I love you, she once told him when everything else fell away and only the important was left.)

Her arms ache with wanting to embrace him. Her lips tingle with wanting to kiss him. Her heart aches with wanting to tell him just how proud she is of him, how much she admires his endless hope and respects his depthless love.

She wants.

It's not easy (it will never be easy, not between them, the Dark One and his maid). It's not simple (it can never be simple, not between them, the spinner and the scholar). It's not always going to be happy (it will never be a story-like happily-ever-after, not for them, the man who sees himself as a beast and the beauty who wants to be a hero).

But she wants it anyway. She wants the look in his eyes every time she walks in the room and the sound of his voice when he says her name like a dream and the taste of his mouth when he pulls her close and risks the loss of all his power and comfort. She wants him.

(Yes, he said in return, accepting and daring and risking it all but hoping nonetheless. And I love you too.)

"Yes," she says, and she smiles (she is brave, now, even before she does the brave thing). "Yes, I'd like that."

He stays with her all night, side by side on the floor as they sort books and he surreptitiously magics away water and smoke damage while she pretends not to notice and ends up getting distracted by interesting books until he asks her to read to him and she does and they both pretend they are paying any attention at all to the story when really all they can think of is the feel of their shoulders pressed together and the way their hands rest, so carefully, so casually, against each other's.

(Kiss me again, she thinks. It's working.)

(She thinks it, but she doesn't say it, because she is older and wiser now and if she has learned anything, it is patience.)

He meets her at the library, dressed all in black and purple, so breathtaking that Belle has to clutch the door a moment to keep her balance. He holds himself still and calm, with all the appearance of confidence (the mask he's chosen to present to sway this in his favor), but his eyes give him away, drenched in tentative hope and premature resignation.

Smiling for both their sakes (hers because she cannot hold it in without bursting and his because he needs the support of her visible approval), she steps from the library, locks it behind her, and then (bravely, tellingly), she loops her arm through his. Dressed in yellow (another hint, another memory), her dress swirls against his dark suit coat, and Belle feels a hum of pleasure sing through her at the sight of it.

"Have you had hamburgers before?" she asks him.

"Yes, of course."

"Oh. Well, I haven't."

"No?" He looks down at her. The cadence of his limp and the height of her heels should make their paired walk difficult, she thinks, but here the universe seems to equal things out because it is so easy for her to provide him support and for his unbending arm to offer her balance. "I thought Miss Lucas had taken it upon herself to introduce you to all the many foods her delightful dining establishment has to offer."

She can't help but laugh at the sneer so falsely hidden in his words (it's always been so easy to laugh with him, around him, because of him; in all the moments where their love grows hard, she all too often forgets just how much between them is also simple and uncomplicated and fun too). "Well, she tries, but I get stuck on the ones I like for a while before I move on."

The hint of a smile he'd been wearing disappears, his arm like steel beneath her hands. "I see."

"But even when I try new things," she offers (lest he slam the door in her face once more and she eat lunch with a masked stranger), "I always go back to my favorites. I don't think I ever really move on."

Rumplestiltskin is the inventor of the subtleties, the master of intricate subtext, the dealer in all things unspoken and implied, so she knows he hears what she's saying (she's just not sure if he knows how purposeful her quiet message is).

"Well, I suppose we'll see where hamburgers rank on the list, then, shall we?" is all he says. Still open. Still hoping, still dreading, still trying.

Belle clasps his arm closer to herself and smiles brightly up at him. "I think they're going to be my absolute favorite."

As happens so often (one of the reasons she cannot give him up), he is struck speechless by her (by her words, by her thoughts, by her, and it is so strange, so tantalizing to be seen and heard and valued).

A moment later, he reaches to open the door to the diner for her. Belle smiles again (or still, maybe, so hard to know when all she can see is him), he looks as if he will smile back—

"Gold, I need your help."

For an instant, Belle is back in a cell. Manacled to a wall. Left to rot while Rumplestiltskin mourns, put on a shelf for a rainy day when his enemies want to hurt him most. For an instant, she is helpless, powerless, afraid.

In the next instant, Rumplestiltskin has moved to place himself between her and the Queen, crackling with barely restrained power and barely leashed fury. Belle shrinks forward, only belatedly realizes that her hands are twisted through his jacket as she curls up into his back, and she tries not to think about all the people around her who are hastily vacating the area.

"You dare show your face here?" Rumplestiltskin snarls.

"You promised you wouldn't kill me," Regina says, haughty as ever (as all the times she stopped by Belle's cell to gloat or to condemn or to reassure herself she had something Rumplestiltskin wanted). "Besides, this is important."

Rumplestiltskin swells, grows, the force of his sheer presence looming over the taller woman. Though she can't see his face, Belle knows that he is cold, implacable, and so very, very terrifying. "And Belle isn't? How. Dare. You. I think you'll find, your Majesty, that there are more fates worse than death than just the one you sentenced her to. Do try to stretch your imagination a bit more, won't you?"

"Gold—"

"No. We're done here."

"It's Cora."

With her hands gripping his suit coat, Belle can feel against her knuckles the shiver that races down Rumplestiltskin's spine (the infinitesimal flinch, invisible to all but her).

"Cora," he says. She's never heard his voice like this. Numb. Hollow. Emptied of everything (the purpose and the regret with which he speaks of his son; the condescension and the pride with which he speaks of David and his wife and the savior; the tenderness with which he speaks of her). "You said she was dead. You said you saw the body."

"Well, apparently you taught her well. And now she's coming back."

"I don't see how that's a problem for me," Rumplestiltskin says after a brief pause. "I beat her, in the end."

Regina arches a disbelieving brow. "That's not how she tells it. Besides, things are different now, aren't they?"

Beneath her fingers, Rumplestiltskin stiffens still further. Another heartbreak, Belle thinks. Whoever this Cora is, whatever she means to come here for, she is only another in a long line of scars stretching back through Rumplestiltskin's varied life.

Belle's always wanted to be brave. For as long as she can remember, she's longed to be a hero like the ones found in her favorite books. Bravery, heroism, sacrifice—all ideals she has strived to reach (with varying degrees of success). But it wasn't until Rumplestiltskin entered her life that she really found a way to prove herself.

He gave her the chance to save her people.

He offered her a way out and a way back to him to try for that most powerful and elusive of all magics.

He is the adventure she's always longed for, the trial she's always wanted to set herself, the mystery she wants more than anything to uncover.

More than that, he is hers. No matter what happened between him and this Cora in the past, it is their cup that is his most precious possession.

And now, in this moment, he needs her. Needs her to be brave. To be strong. To be more than the naïve, sheltered princess or the maid sent always to another room.

"This time," Regina says with a pointed look Belle's way, "you have a weakness."

Gathering the shreds of her fledgling courage, Belle releases her grip on Rumplestiltskin and moves to stand at his side. She can't tell if he stiffens further when she threads her arm through his or if he relaxes a hair, but either way, there is a definite change.

"If you're talking about me," she says (so relieved when her voice doesn't shake), "I'm not a weakness."

"Of course not," Rumplestiltskin says, though she can see fear swimming in his eyes. "Now, if that'll be all, Belle and I have a lunch to get to."

"Gold, if Cora gets through—"

Rumplestiltskin snarls at Regina, a change so abrupt, so menacing that the Queen actually falls back a step. "That's really not my problem, dearie. And if you ever come so close to Belle again, I will salt this town's earth with your blood."

Regina draws in a breath, but Rumplestiltskin's already turning away from her (and Belle remembers, she knows, what it's like for his weighted, empowering focus to suddenly be turned elsewhere, leaving her stumbling and lost in the absence of his all-consuming regard; it is, perhaps, the worst thing he has ever done to her, when he pretended to stop caring).

(As she's done to him with her one well-intentioned lie.)

For the first time, Belle is actually glad when a door closes behind her because it puts a barrier, even one as thin as glass, between her and Regina.

Though the better barrier, the stronger defense, is the man who guides her to a booth and keeps his eyes averted while he clumsily slides in and hides his cane beneath the table. Ruby brings over a few menus, unusually quiet—not that Belle doesn't understand. A confrontation between the Evil Queen and Rumplestiltskin himself is the stuff of nightmares, and it happened right on the diner's doorstep.

Rumplestiltskin fumbles with the menu, almost dropping it, and Belle emerges from her residual fear to realize that he's nervous. Unsure. (Afraid that his beastly side has scared her away.)

"Hey," she says softly, and he drops the menu to the table, his head bowing.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs.

Belle's stomach clenches. "Why?"

"That you had to see that," he jerks his head in the direction of the door. "That she came near you. I promised to protect you and yet she walks free."

"Hey." Belle drops her hand over his. She meant it to be a reassuring gesture (and it seems to be since he freezes and goes soft and breathless the way he's done since the first time she touched him voluntarily), but she didn't realize how much it would settle her too. Abruptly, she's able to take her first full breath since Regina interrupted them. "It's okay. She didn't hurt me. And I don't think she'll be coming after me again."

"You'd be surprised," he says with a roll of his eyes. "Regina has never been the quickest of students."

"Well, I'm not afraid of her." Belle offers him a smile (more tremulous than she'd like). "Or, maybe I am, but I'm trying not to be."

"Ah, Belle." There are more words (precious words) in his eyes, in the way his hand shakes beneath hers, but he locks them away (respects the boundary she's placed between them with her lie).

They both order hamburgers, Belle with iced tea and Rumplestiltskin with coffee, before Rumplestiltskin asks what she knows he's most worried about.

"If you're not afraid of Regina…" He peers up at her from under his lashes. "Are you…are you afraid of me?"

If she were a better person, she thinks, maybe she would be. If she were a better person, his ruthless threats would make her think twice about the title of Dark One and how he acquired it, how he handles the curse he refused to let her break (his son, she thinks again, on an endless loop in her head as every day, pieces of him become clearer and clearer), how his deals have not always been with an eye toward any future goal. If she were more of a hero and less of a scared girl who sometimes hyperventilates when a door sticks before opening, she would frown at his lack of desire to help the town and she'd try to nudge him toward doing more, being better, pulling out the good man lying dusty and neglected behind endless masks and facades.

But she still has her memories. She remembers endless days in a drafty tower and visitors who broke in asking her to help kill her True Love, blows that left bruises and words that left scars. She remembers a father who should have embraced her but locked her up and sent her away instead. She thinks of a town who does not care to grow to know her or even to protect her from the secrets they think she's forgotten.

"I'm not afraid of you," she says (a truth to counter the lie that started this whole thing spinning out of control all around her). "You make me feel safe." Looking down at her iced tea and trying not to blush, she adds, "You make me feel like I can be brave. Like I can be strong."

"My darling Belle," he says hoarsely, and her breath catches in her throat when he cradles her hand between both of his. "You are strong, the strongest person I've ever known. And I've never seen you be anything less than utterly courageous." His smile is self-deprecating and sincere. "You're here with me, after all. That's nothing if not bold."

"I like being with you," she says softly. "This is exactly where I want to be."

She has never seen him look so beautiful as he does in that moment, happy and wonderstruck and relieved (he looks as if she has broken his curse all over again and this time he will not prevent it).

As she thought they would be, the hamburgers are her favorite thing she's ever had.

That night, she dreams of Rumplestiltskin. Truthfully, she's been dreaming of him for years now. First, in his castle, they were shy, sweet dreams of small kindnesses, quiet confidences, even, eventually, daring kisses. Out in the world, chasing adventures so much duller than the one she left behind, she dreamed of him appearing in the middle of the forest, standing between her and the yaoguai—and sometimes, guiltily, she dreamed he saw her bravery with the flaming monster and he recanted of his cruel words and begged her to return with him.

In the Queen's castle, the dreams were simpler, blurred memories of days gone by and the connection they had forged, little bit by quiet moment by brave trust—either that, or nightmares that he forgot her, drank a potion and left her behind forever, erasing the memories in a way so much more permanent than his usual method of spinning endless gold.

As the nobody locked away underground, Belle didn't dream at all. Or if she did, she doesn't remember them. She remembers only a void, hungry and gaping and yawning wider with every memory, every dream, every hope she tried to reach for.

Once she found Rumplestiltskin again…well, then, the dreams changed. Twisted into nightmares, scenarios of joyous moments morphing into a Dark One who ignored her and turned away from her, who sought to protect her but didn't listen to her. Nightmares that left her gasping and trembling and turning in an empty bed to look for the man who'd left it.

Nightmares that, if she's honest, are the reason she pried a window open and headed into town for herself (the reason she opened her mouth to speak a lie she thought was a kindness but has been revealed as only camouflaged cruelty).

This night, after hamburgers and tea and a companionable walk where they leaned on each other and he made her laugh with a few quips and she made him nearly cry with a kiss to his cheek, she dreams again.

It starts out like her nightmare. A cozy moment in his shop, another in a long line of gifts he offers her with no expectation of anything in return, her own voice thanking him for changing (from Dark One to ordinary man? from monster to good man? from beast to hero? She's never sure, when she wakes, what change she's so happy he's making, when in her waking hours, she looks at him and can only ever see Rumplestiltskin). And then the interruption. Leroy (or Ruby or Granny or anyone she's met in her town, the faces blur and fade next to the sharpness of Rumplestiltskin) barges in demanding something of the Dark One, and then…

And then.

He is calm. He is contained. Rude, perhaps, but with the same type of comment as the ones she laughs at when they're alone so she can't complain. And then, when Ruby (or Granny or Leroy or anybody) turns their attention her way, with an insult or a threat, that's when Rumplestiltskin snaps.

The ordinary man transforms into the Dark One.

The man so good and kind and sweet with her becomes a beast full of threats and the power to back it up.

The hero she wants, the hero she knows he is (his son, all this time, all these years, he just wants to find his son), subsumed by a monster who will not allow her close, will not accept her touch, will not help her bridge the distance between them.

Only this time, it isn't Granny (or Leroy or Ruby) who bursts into the shop.

It's Regina.

This time, the thing they want back is her. The Queen has come for her prisoner, and Rumplestiltskin goes from Mr. Gold to the Dark One in an instant.

This time, Belle doesn't try to stop him.

This time, she steps up next to him, and lays her hand on his arm—and he stills. Goes quiet. Watches her with wide eyes and dropped mouth.

And he doesn't kill the Queen. Instead, he sends her away, and he envelops Belle in his golden arms and she breathes in the smell of leather and straw and magic.

Belle smiles at him and thinks, Mine.

Belle sits up gasping, her heart hammering against her breastbone. The room's dark around her, light from the window just profiling the edges of the books stacked up on her nightstand. She can still feel the slightly pebbled feel of Rumplestiltskin's skin, can still smell the straw, feel the crackle of energy that always surrounded him.

He listened to her. Even in the depths of the nightmare, consumed by power and vengeance…he stopped at her touch.

All this time, she's been so afraid of the beast inside him, the curse that enveloped him, the danger that lurked in their future.

All this time, she should have been afraid of herself—of the part of herself that likes the fact that the Dark One will hush and soothe and stand down for her. She should have been afraid of the power she holds over him, the ability to sway him to good or evil, and the dark parts of her heart that love his power and his threat and his menace. She should have been afraid of how much she could hurt them.

All this time, he hasn't been the only one who's changing. He knew, she thinks, of course he did, it's why he let her go, tried to send her away before she lost the light that so entrances him. But that same light also blinds him, and maybe if he needs to let her pull the curtains down to bring in the sun, she should be willing to walk through the dark places where he's most comfortable.

(I'll get used to it, he said after she fell into his arms and both their hearts teetered over the precipice.)

"I'll get used to it," she whispers to the moon and the stars and the black spaces in between.

Suddenly, she can't wait to see Rumplestiltskin again. It's past time, she thinks, to unravel the falsehood standing between them.

Every time she tries to find Rumplestiltskin, there are people with him. Regina and David and a boy with a kind smile and old eyes, and then, later, the princess-turned-fugitive-turned-queen and her savior daughter too. Belle tries, once and again and yet again, to find a spare moment, a space of privacy so she can bridge the gap between herself and her True Love, but the closest she gets is when she brings a picnic basket to his shop, and even that is interrupted by a murder accusation and (she presumes, since they ushered her out of the shop before she could do more than try to point out how ridiculous it was to blame Rumplestiltskin with no proof) some magic.

For all that Belle is smart, she knows she has never been cunning, and trying to plot a way to finagle some alone time with Rumplestiltskin exhausts her.

(More, secretly, in the dark of the night, she wonders if he wants her to fix things between them or if, perhaps, he is happier with this distance between them. But that is an old fear, an insecurity she shoves aside in favor of memories when he's come to her, reached out for her, confided in her, chosen her.)

Eventually, as the town prepares for the funeral of the kind man who always had a kindly hello for her when she passed him walking his dog, Belle resigns herself to waiting. She hates the need for it, particularly knowing just how low Rumplestiltskin can allow himself to sink if someone (if she) isn't there to chivvy him back to the light, but she refuses to blurt this truth out to him in front of others—or worse, blurt it out and then allow an interruption to part them and hours to pass while he solidifies his own skewed interpretation of her action into his perceived reality.

She debates going to the funeral, but ultimately decides against it. The town still hasn't accepted her past (her present; her future, if she has anything to say about it) with Rumplestiltskin, and her lack of memories leaves them often avoiding her rather than risking any conversation where she might ask about magic or fairy dust or amnesia-causing town lines.

She is nearly to the library when the phone (left for her on the library desk with no name attached to it, which is just as good as Rumplestiltskin's signature anymore) in her pocket rings its strident chime. A moment of juggling with the library key in one hand and flipping the phone open with the other, then she's saying, tentatively, "Hello?" with the phone hovering near her ear (she's only ever talked to Ruby on it, once, when the waitress showed her how it works).

"Belle, this is…it's—"

"I know you are," she says (she can't lie, not anymore). "Hello."

"Yes. I… Hey."

Impossible not to smile at that. She leans against the library door (it rattles, loose, as if unlocked; odd, she thought she was careful about that) and presses the phone a bit closer to her so she can better hear his voice. "How are you?" she asks.

"I…fine. Are you? All right, I mean? Everything's well?"

"Yes," she says, and her laughter sounds in her voice. She can just picture him straightening, drawing up the tattered remains of his pride and steadfastly pretending he's never stumbled or stuttered in his life (it strikes a pang of nostalgia sharp in her chest, for that scaled and narrow man who paraded like an imp for others but reverted to a skittish cat when alone with her).

"Ah. Well. Good. I was wondering if you could stop by the shop today. I have something to show you, if you'd like."

Her heart leaps for the phone, gets stuck in her throat, and hangs trembling against the slats of her breastbone. "Yes!" she says a bit too quickly. "Yes, I can come. Right now?"

"If…if that's convenient for you."

"I'll be there in a moment," she says. "I'm just outside the library now."

"Be careful," he says. Belle can't resist rolling her eyes, grateful the phone conveys only noise.

Once his voice is replaced by a long chime, Belle puts the phone and the key back into her pockets and turns toward the end of the street. A thud from behind her makes her jump and turn, but there's nothing there. It sounded like it came from the library, she thinks, and can just picture one of her teetering piles, sorted so carefully by measure of her interest, falling to scatter across the floor. She hesitates for only a breath before deciding it can wait.

Rumplestiltskin asked for her. He called her. Invited her in. Wants to show her something.

Since the moment she came back to him (even before she knew who she was), he's been overjoyed to have her back. He's bent over backward to accommodate her and has offered her anything and everything that is in his possession or power. He has curled his fingers around hers when she takes his hand, and wraps her in an embrace when she reaches for him, and in those first heady days of freedom and togetherness, he reciprocated everything she offered.

But the one thing he hasn't done, the one thing she craves above all, is to invite her into the closed portion of his life. He accommodates her (and she's grateful, so grateful, when the reactions of everyone in this tiny village show just how unusual that is for him), but he hasn't invited. Now, he does.

And now, if they are alone, if he has time for her between all the desperate souls vying for his attention…now is her chance.

Belle's steps slows halfway to the shop.

She can tell him.

The truth.

The lie.

She can stop the way the easy (too easy; she should have remembered Rumplestiltskin's well-worn adage about there always being a price) lie has been spinning ever further out of her control. She can clear up the guilt that shadows Rumplestiltskin's eyes when he thinks of protecting her. She can reassure him that she still loves him (she will always love him).

And then, she will find out if he can forgive her…or not.

He's waiting for her, and when she comes through the door, he smiles. Tentative still, maybe, but automatic and hers all the same. "Hey," he says, and she can't help but rush forward to let her hands rest on the counter next to his (almost touching).

"Hey," she says. "I've missed you."

His breath catches audibly before he tidies it away and moves around the counter to stand just in front of her. "I miss you too," he says, softly, voice more brittle than she'd like. To counter the fragility, she takes his hand in hers.

"So…you have something to show me?"

"I do." Tearing his eyes from their hands, he smiles up at her again. "But we'll have to take a short trip, is that all right?"

"Of course."

He blinks. "Of course. You…you trust me?"

(You trust me to come back?)

"Well," she teases, "I haven't actually experienced your driving yet, but I suppose I can give you the benefit of the doubt."

(Oh, no. I expect I'll never see you again.)

(They are both, it seems, liars.)

It's not until they're in the car that Belle can finally focus past her own nervous excitement to realize that Rumplestiltskin is strung tight with his own tense anticipation. He's controlled, of course, as this new persona of his often is, but there's a ragged edge blurring the ends of that façade, a bit of Rumplestiltskin peeking through to make his hands fidget against the steering wheel and his breath to sound just the slightest bit ragged as he drives them away from the town.

When he pulls the car to a stop, Belle looks all around in a mixture of curiosity and confusion. There's nothing there. Just more road, though something has left a bright orange line colored across the black stone, like a gate blocking the way.

"Where are we?" she asks.

"The town line," he says in little more than a whisper.

Belle's excitement is doused like flames under sand. Rumplestiltskin's hand flutters toward hers (as if he means to comfort her) before falling back to his side.

"You trust me?" he asks again.

Pausing only long enough to make sure she's looking him straight in the eye, she nods. "Yes."

"Then," he says hoarsely, "come with me."

Together, they move away from the car—stopped well back from that sickeningly bright line—and toward the town line. Belle lets herself cling close to his side, lets herself lean against him (lets herself need him as much as he seemingly needs her), and is glad when they stop a foot away from it.

"What, uh, what are we doing here?" she asks. There's a tremble to her voice, a tremor shaking her bones, and Belle finds it almost impossible to look away from that awful orange line.

"I have something for you." Rumplestiltskin extracts his arm from her grasp long enough to reach into his pocket and pull out a tiny glass bottle. Inside the bottle, a clear potion catches the light and casts a prism over his hand.

Belle shivers and shrugs deeper into her jacket (wishes it were his sweater, warm and enveloping and saturated with good memories). "I don't understand."

Rumplestiltskin proffers the bottle to her. "It will restore your memories."

Silence. The silence of the space between heartbeats. It comes all at once and overpoweringly (the exact opposite of heartbreak, or perhaps it is just the beat before the stages of that heartbreak begin playing yet again through them both).

At her silence, Rumplestiltskin lowers the potion a bit but doesn't look away from her. His eyes are so full, too full, all mingled hope and hurt and fear and glee, a concoction as impossible and magical as anything he's ever made in his tower or that basement of his. "I'm sorry, Belle. What happened to you…what was done to you…you didn't deserve any of it. But this…this potion can undo all that, if you wish it."

"I…"

Suddenly, Belle feels sick.

How many days has he spent working on this? How many hours—when he should have been working on finding his son—has he instead devoted to trying to 'fix' this problem of hers?

She thought she was helping (saving) him. She thought she was protecting (curing) him. She thought she was choosing his son (breaking his curse) for him.

Instead, she's only delayed him. Distracted him. Hurt him for no reason at all.

"Wait," she says, but Rumplestiltskin shakes his head, desperate, pressing forward.

"Please, Belle. I'm sorry. I wanted to let you go, I wanted to free you find happiness, but…I need you. I didn't want to lose you, again, without letting you know…everything." He nudges the bottle against her hand, the glass warm from his body heat for all that it makes her feel cold inside. "You see, I think…I think I've found a way to cross the town line without losing my memories. I think I might finally be able to…"

"Your son," she whispers, sagging forward against him (in relief, in joy, in sheer feeling). "You can find your son."

"Yes." The word is a breath of longing that carries with it the weight of worlds and lives and untold centuries—and nothing at all compared to what shapes the next secret he gives her (all of that and more but paired with the hint of a smile). "Baelfire…is his name. I've never been very good at letting go, Belle. I've never been much more than…than a coward. And never more so than when I chose to hold onto my power even when that meant losing the most important person in my life."

"But now you can find him again. That's…" She takes a deep breath, suddenly finding it hard to get any air (suddenly hard not to wonder if he brought her here to say goodbye before he heads off into the world after his son). "That's good."

"I've spent my entire life since doing nothing but trying to find a way back to him." He looks away, then, as if that could hide the tears spilling out of the damaged places inside of him (so much more than just a chip). "But now that I have a way…all I can think is that…" He leans heavily on his cane, the least graceful move she has ever seen him make (as if the loosing of these secrets is unbalancing him). "I have lost so much that I loved. I just…I didn't want to lose you, too, without trying. So, here. If you'll have it."

Belle's heart is fracturing inside her chest, all jagged edges and sharp points (and finally she sees the appeal in striking out at anything and everything around her, in unleashing devastation on the world lest it consume her). Shrinking in on herself, she buries her face in her hands and tries not to imagine what his face will transform into when she confesses (tries not to remember a kiss and a sudden transformation, a ravenous beast and a broken man stalking her with venom leaking from his mouth).

"Belle?"

"I'm sorry!" she cries. "I'm so sorry, Rumplestiltskin. I remember, okay? I know who you are. I've always known. And I'm so sorry. I never should have lied, I just…I was so afraid that they'd use me against you again—and I was angry and I was a coward, too, because instead of facing you, I hid behind a lie, and, Rumple, I am so, so sorry."

She's tugging at his coat, at his scarf, pulling him close, her hands like claws trying to keep him at her side even as she cannot bear to look up and see the effects of her deceit.

"Belle," he says (still with that note of awe) and Belle lets out a cry and throws herself at him.

The glass bottle, jarred from his hand, falls to the ground at their feet. Shatters. Splatters liquid over their shoes.

Belle stares down at it, trapped in a perilous moment. Belatedly kneeling as if she can fix it (as if it is as important as the seething shards of their relationship), she says, "I'm so sorry. It's…it's gone. All that work you did and I broke it. It's—"

"It's water."

"Wh-what?"

Rumplestiltskin takes her elbow to help her stand. He doesn't look ruined. He looks…composed. Too composed.

"It's water," he repeats. "Admittedly, it is water from Lake Nostos, but that's really only because I was feeling sentimental."

"Water? But…you said it would restore my memories."

"And if you took it, if you drank it thinking it was a potion…then that meant that you wanted to return to who you were. When you were with me. It would mean that you…that you chose me. Again. Still."

"But I don't understand." Belle backs up from him, her head shaking back and forth. "You…you knew? You knew I lied?"

His shrug is tiny, and so resigned it hurts her in a way she can't quite define. "Not at first. But crossing the town line reverts you to your cursed self. And…you were still Belle. Still brave. Still kind. Still smart. Still…still not afraid of a beast."

"You're not a beast," she says out of habit (sincerity touching every word).

He smiles a tight, sad smile. "And that's why I knew."

"Why didn't you say anything?" she cries.

"Because." He looks away, past the town line, out toward the world where, somewhere, his son waits. "It wasn't what you wanted. If you wanted a clean break, then that's the least I could give you."

"I didn't! I don't!" she says fiercely, once more stepping closer, crowding him, reaching to curl her fingers around the lapels of his coat. "I just…maybe at first I was still upset. But…your son, Rumple! How could I get in the way of that? How could I possibly ask you to choose me over Baelfire?"

Slowly, gently, he leans his head down until his forehead is resting against hers. "I love you," he confesses (as if it's something to be ashamed about; as if he's afraid it sullies her in some way). "I could never choose between you. I thought…I thought I could let you go. But you kept coming back. You always come back, my darling Belle. And it made me hope in a way I haven't for so very long. It made me think that maybe…maybe this is what you want."

"It is," she whispers against his cheek, breathing deep of wind and spice and straw, metal and magic and wool. "But, Rumplestiltskin, what do you want?"

"What?" He pulls back far enough to frown down at her, his brow creased, his eyes tight. "What do you mean?"

"I mean…when I asked you to protect me, that's what you did for me—and you did, Rumple, you did save me. And when I lied and you figured it out, you still gave me what you thought I wanted. But all this time, when I lied, when I tried to stay away from you, it was always because I thought it was what you wanted."

"Oh, Belle, I would never choose a life apart from you."

"Then…then what do you want from me?"

He worries at the handle of his cane, a few inches of distance now between them. She wishes she could clean the fear off his face like she cleaned his castle of the cobwebs, wishes she could ease the constant worry always nibbling at the edges of his mind. But for now, this is important. This matters. (This is their future being decided here and it scares her too.)

"I want you to be happy," he says, so earnest that she blinks back more tears.

"But what do you want?"

"I…I don't want you to leave me."

"Rumple," she breathes (though she can't ignore the fact that he still hasn't really told her what he wants). "I'm not going anywhere. Listen to me, okay? I want you to find your son. And when you do, I'll be here waiting for you when you get back."

His hands shake when he reaches forward. Her knees quiver when she steps into him. Their lips are steady as her heartbeat (yearning for his) when they meet. Belle melts into him, close and all-consuming and indescribable.

This is her adventure. Her mystery. Her fate that she chooses.

"I love you, Rumplestiltskin," she says, and catches him when he sags.

"Belle, sweetheart, please don't leave me."

(Go, he once told her, when he thought it was what she wanted.

Don't leave, he says, now and then, in quiet moments, in sidelong glances, in hands that brush against her and steps that follow her, in between the lines of every false word he spins, the truth lying between.)

All this time, she thought she didn't know what she wanted. But he's been telling her all along.

Don't leave me.

Stay with me.

Love me.

"I love you," she says with a kiss to his cheek.

(My price is her.)

"I love you," she says with a kiss to his brow.

(It's forever, dearie.)

"I love you," she says with a kiss to his nose.

(I will go with you, forever.)

"I love you, I love you, I love you," and a kiss with every truth, the binding seal on their deal and all the lies fled back to the shadows.

"Yes," he says.

(I promise.)

"And I love you too."

There's a pirate hiding in her library. There's a fight when Rumplestiltskin escorts her back to the library and she pulls him in after her (intending to lead him farther, to pull him, unresistingly, up into her apartment and to keep him there until he has to go out to find Baelfire). A scuffle that ends with the pirate frozen immobile and Rumplestiltskin's face transfigured with a fathomless hate when he looks down at the man. Belle recognizes the pirate, too (has her own reasons to hate), but Rumplestiltskin doesn't deserve to be weighted down by any more darkness, particularly when he's about to head off to make amends with his son.

When Belle puts her hand on him, he gentles. When she tells him to let the sheriff deal with the pirate, he listens. And when he puts his hand in hers, she knows that just as surely as she chose him, he chooses her too.

Nothing will be easy, she knows. Now that she's found her love, he's worth fighting for—and there will be more fights, she knows. More struggles. More lies. More secrets. Because he is trapped in a cycle nearly impossible to break free of (self-loathing and regret and fear all tangled up in an unconquerable hope that won't ever let him stop trying anyway) and because she is not always as wise or as patient or as understanding as a character in one of her books might be (young and idealistic and so eager to be a hero it's sometimes easy to lose sight of what matters most).

But it's okay, she thinks as Rumplestiltskin bows to let her loop his son's shawl around his neck. It's okay because hard as this might always be, they both choose it.

They both choose each other.

And like straw turning to gold, this truth transforms all their lies into magic.

"I'll come back," he promises.

"I'll be waiting," she vows.

A deal that will never be broken. The most powerful magic in any world.

True Love.