It was supposed to be a one shot. I wanted to answer how I figured Belle might know about the cup.

Enjoy...still too fluffy for Rumbelle Wars. (I guess that makes me a medic)

It had been eight months since she'd been out of the hospital and been found by Rumplestiltskin but the nightmares had only increased since then. She figured it had to be the curse's punishment for being one of the few that remembered and she remembered quite a bit.

Even now it was strange to go anywhere in town and interact with the mild mannered clerks that made up the fairytale world and seeing Ashley and Ruby and know who they used to be while keeping quiet. It was even more awkward with Mary Margaret and Emma.

Mary Margaret was kindness herself but she'd heard when out in her travels, that it had been her husband, Prince James that had captured Rumple with the help of Prince Thomas, and as such tried not to be too testy with David and Sean, but it was difficult.

She had no illusions as to the kind of deals Rumple made and knew that the fear of him was genuinely earned but it still made her angry that people made these deals and called him a devil without thinking about their own desperate parts in them even in this world.

And despite his cold treatment of her, her sympathetic button was always pushed when she noticed how harshly he was treated by the folk of Storybrooke. She knew he cultivated their dislike but it was during his unguarded moments when she observed him walking by himself to his shop or home that she had to try hard not to go to him while the rest of their world went on uncaring.

Belle had since built up a comfortable, if stilted rapport that though not yet fully romantic in nature, not from lack of trying on her part, at least painted him in a more human light to his fellow town folk and it made her happy that people were seeing him with much kinder eyes.

Though she didn't need to hide that she met with him due to her father's loans and most of the town was aware of their interactions, she still found legitimate reasons for seeing him though the gossip only bothered him when it had to deal with her, which was often.

And that was why when the rent was due and she'd made a fresh basket of muffins that just happened to be his favorite, she went to visit her unwilling love.

She felt eyes on her and immediately spotted the Sheriff exiting Granny's. She knew that Emma had been watching her very closely for the last month in an effort to protect her from Mr. Gold's constant refusals and the heartbreak it caused her, and though it annoyed her that she was being seen as someone that needed to be protected, she appreciated the blonde's good intentions.

So she nodded and the sheriff nodded back. It was their way of saying that help was not needed for the moment but that she'd be available if it were.

Belle gathered her coat tighter and ran the last few steps to his shop to avoid the sudden deluge. The light was still on and she hurriedly opened the door.

"Good afternoon. Belle."

"Hello. Mr. Gold. I brought the rent and some muffins. Cranberry," she said shaking her damp hair.

Gold glanced up from his paperwork and pointed to a teapot and cups that looked like it was just waiting to be used. "That sounds delightful."

She frowned at his formal tone but she didn't argue as she turned the sign to closed and began preparing what she hoped would become their daily tea time. "It's really starting to come down isn't it?"

He put away the remaining inventory sheets and seated himself next to her. She passed him his tea and he let his hands linger on hers so that the cup was pressed between their hands for a second. This was the first time he shown her any encouragement in months and she glanced at him curiously.

His moods had always been difficult to understand and in this place they shifted constantly.

"Yes, I suppose I'll have to close for the next few days. No one will come in a downpour."

"I'll still visit." She said and handed him a muffin.

He took it and his mouth curled into a tiny smile that brightened up his face and dislodged the morose atmosphere there had been when she first entered. "I expect you will. Are you settling well?"

Belle fiddled with her spoon unsure of what she could say that would not upset him. He worried so much about her well being that it had taken two weeks just to get him to say hello to her, after the month he asked Regina for had been up, for fear the queen would go after her again.

"Papa is more understanding, I guess."

"But?"

"He looks at me oddly. Like he doesn't know what to do with me. The queen has poisoned him against me and I have nightmares of the things he says when he thinks I'm not around. About his desire for revenge for what you did to him and what he calls my unnatural feelings for you. He thinks I am confused but I know what I feel."

She looked down at her hands embarrassed for her father's ignorance of this wonderful man beside her but he reached out and held them in silent thanks for her defense of him. She instantly felt terrible for ruining their first little moment, since she started visiting with her wretched worries and she struggled to shake the darkness loose from her mind.

"I've been meaning to ask. What happened between you and my father? Why does he hate you so?"

"I don't think that now it the time…"

"Rumple, tell me." She gripped his hand and smiled at how his beautiful elegant fingers wrapped around her own as if trying to shield her.

She leaned her head against his shoulder and they relaxed as he told her about collecting payment and the theft of what he had believed to be his last precious memento of hers and the severe beating that had ended with one of them in jail and the other in the hospital.

"You beat my father over a chipped cup?"

"I thought the last of you was gone it unhinged me."

"Strange man, you are. Mr. Gold." She replied forgiving him.

"That I am indeed. You never did tell me how you knew about the cup?"

"Hmmm," she said eyes semi closed absorbing the peace that only seem to happen around him.

"Back in that place when I found you. You knew about the cup. How?"

"The queen visited often and kept me abreast of the happenings of Storybrooke. She thought me mad so she never curbed her tongue. When she was in a particularly foul mood she'd bring you up and she'd torture me with stories of you getting along without me."

"Then why tell you about the cup?" he asked puzzled.

"She knew I didn't believe her and the day she killed the hunts…graham she was especially vindictive. She actually came into my cell and taunted me about how she told you I threw myself from the tower. She was gleeful as she recounted your sorrow and she wasted no time in telling me that she'd never allow you to know I was alive and that my absence had made you a bitter being with nothing to remember me by but a chipped cup."

"Regina always did love her misery and none more than that of others. Especially mine."

"Is she aware of what you know. Of what I know."

He turned slightly and rested his head against hers. "No. She'd never allow us these quiet moments if she did."

"Is that why you were so serious when I came in?"

She felt him pull away but her hand on his sleeve stayed him. "Our month has been up for some time and I cannot bear the thought of you in her clutches again."

Belle got up from the chair and stood in front of his bent form. "I'm not helpless you know. I have many allies and friends here."

He laughed but it was dry and without humor. "Like who?"

She glared down at him as he fiddled with his walking stick. "Mary Margaret, Ruby and Emma. Even Henry helps me out when I don't feel too sane and you."

"Mary Margaret, who can't get her act together with David, Ruby who can't do a simple order without pouncing on any available male or are we talking about our dear Sheriff that is still mourning the passing of the Queen's old lover and Henry, who is tied to the evil bitch. I know…" he got up pushing past her and pacing angrily in the narrow aisles of the shop. "…how about the crippled old man that would have given his name for a piece of broken crockery. Are those you allies?" he snarled.

"Yes, Mary Margaret who kisses David by the abandoned Troll Road when she can but still has time to walk with me around town and Ruby who helped me find a way to keep upbeat with all her flirty gossip while you kept away," she said slowly backing him up to the door of the shop.

He looked away but she was not backing down, not this time. "Henry with his talk of fairy tales that is truer than he knows and Emma who mourns Graham but still listens to me when I come home crying over you, who tells me to tell you to go to hell when you push me away. And you…"

She paused and gently took his cane and propped it against the counter next to him. She pined him to the shuttered door and slid her hands down his arms gently. "The crippled old man, who was the biggest ally I had when I fought the queen down in that cell."

He took a deep shuddering breath as she lifted his arms and wrapped them around herself. She pressed her body to brace him further or not let him escape, she wasn't sure anymore. "You have no clue that these arms are my safe haven. That they'll be the reason I fight for this town and its broken inhabitants. I will fight to restore their happy endings…including yours."

"I'm the villain. I can't be happy." He said roughly but that didn't stop his hands from curling around her waist and pulling her so close that her scent became his.

"I'm not a villain and my happy ending will not be complete without you."

"Promise me you'll be careful." He said giving in to her.

"I'll make you a deal. I'll be careful if you stop sending me away." She said and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth.

"Deal."