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The park, where Mr. Gold was strolling after a long day at work, was alight with the late afternoon sun. As they did every end of the day, Rumpelstiltskin was going to meet Belle at their quiet little spot before heading home together.Belle was sitting on the park bench pale and shaking. He quickened his step, rushing to her aid. Taking her hands in his and sitting by her side, he wordlessly asked what was the matter. Belle held his hands and in a shaky voice, whispered, “you never told me.”“What?” Rumple asked, not sure what she was talking about.“How it was for you.” She said, “I spoke to Regina today, and we were talking about something, and she just mentioned in passing the torture that you suffered. Like it was an every-day thing. And I realized that it must really have been every day.” “We spoke about it,” he said, surprised that it bothered her so much more than usual.“You never got into detail,” Belle whispered, “I don’t blame you. It’s… it’s unspeakable , but to think that you resigned yourself to- to that for all eternity…” Belle said, her eyes almost popping with dread and her hands shaking again.“Oh, Belle,” Rumple sighed, “you must understand, it was nothing -“Belle looked like she was going to scream so Rumple added quickly, “I mean it was bad, yes, it was painful beyond my ability to endure it, that’s true.” He said shuddering at the memory, “Every time I thought that it couldn’t get any more hellish, it got a lot more violent and heinous. It was a tremendous relief when I was finally allowed to die”Belle held his hands tighter, at that, and pulled him closer to her, as if to reassure herself that he was still there.“But I’m here, now, I’m okay,” he whispered comfortingly, when he saw Belle paled even further.“It- what they did to you,” Belle swallowed, “it wasn’t nothing.”“But all of this was hurting me physically” he confided, looking into Belle’s eyes. “Deep inside my soul I knew my family was safe, don’t you see? All that pain I suffered was nothing compared to the emotional torture I felt before that, from the moment I was resurrected, and saw that my son was paying the price!”Belle saw the painful memory clouding his eyes, “When I saw that Bae, was the one to open the dark vault, I, I did things that I knew made no sense, but I couldn’t think, at all, with Bae lying there…and then… Oh, Belle, I couldn’t save him…”Belle put her hands on his shoulders, “She didn’t even let you be at the funeral,” she breathed, “Zelena, did she taunt you about losing your son?”“She didn’t need to. I was already so anguished, I couldn’t breathe… Every breath I took was a breath I knew my son paid for. I wanted to die but I knew that I wouldn’t, I also knew that death would not make the pain go away. I was turning to dust, “They sat there quietly for a few minutes together, memories filling their minds. Belle remembered how happy she was when her beloved Rumple was finally free, when she gave him back his dagger. But, was he happy? She suddenly wondered. She looked at Rumple, “and… after Zelena…?”“when I was freed, I tried to force myself, through magic, to be happy, for you.” He looked at Belle, and tried to smile, but they both knew how charged that moment was.“It wasn’t real…” Belle murmured.“Even when we were getting married, all I could think about was how Bae could have been the one to get married, how he should have been the one to be alive with a chance to get married. And that unrelenting grief was engulfing me again.”“Oh,” Belle said, sadly. She remembered how hard Rumple tried to be happy. She remembered how they danced together on their honeymoon. Was his heart breaking inside of him all that time?She knew how hard it was for people to get over a death of a loved one. She remembered Will Scarlet’s story and how hard it was for him that his sister died. Of course it was hard for Rumple. His loss must have been so much harder to get over… and he felt he was alive instead of his beloved son…“You were so depressed…”“I was wasting away, Belle, I felt the darkness overtake my heart because I was dying inside. As much as I wanted to, I knew that if I did let myself die of this misery, if I let this deep depression take me, I will be giving the dark one free reign of my being, because the dark one never dies… “Belle could not believe how all that tine, when she thought she was taming a beast.. he had been struggling just to stay alive, so that the beast wouldn’t take over. In the end, all she really had was a broken man with a broken heart.“That’s when I found the sorcerer’s hat.” Rumple sighed.“Ohhhh…” Belle’s eyes lit up with sudden clarity.“I knew I had to do something to get rid of the darkness, so that when my heart shrivels, no one will be in danger. I tried to convince Emma to let the sorcerer’s hat take her magic. She had powerful magic and it could have pulled out my darkness without any casualties. This hat wasn’t a dangerous object. No one would have died. Only their magic taken away to balance the darkness and keep it safe inside the hat.”Belle remembered the sorcerer telling them, as he removed the darkness from Rumple’s heart, that this was what Rumple has been trying to do with the hat the entire time “So, when it killed the sorcerer… was it because you failed to collect enough light magic to keep your darkness in place?” .He nodded, “When Emma decided not to give up her light magic I became more desperate.”Belle was ashamed at how petty she seemed. While he was trying to keep the rest of the world secure from the raging darkness inside of him, because he was heartbroken, all she thought about was herself and how she wanted to be his one and only concern.He wasn’t a beast to be tamed. He was a father who had lost his child, and couldn’t even be depressed about it without making room for the beast to invade…“I’ve made mistakes while looking for other ways to rid myself of the darkness. This darkness which was feeding on my heartache. I was willing to kill Hook and take all the magic away from the fairies – their combined light magic was equal to Emma’s. The sorcerer would not have died if the darkness was held tightly in the hat by all the light magic. When you banished me from Storybrooke and I didn’t end up removng the darkness, I knew I had to find another way to fix my broken heart.“Oh, Rumple, I am so sorry! I thought you loved power more than me… why did you not tell me what you were trying to do with the hat?” Belle couldn’t help remembering how rejected she felt at the time.“How could I have told you? I love you so much, but as strong as our love is, I didn’t know how to tell you that it wasn’t enough… Even you could not fill the gaping hole that was left when Bae died instead of me. Our true love wasn’t enough to stop me from falling into this bottomless depression because I just couldn’t move on from losing Bae. I had to use magic on my heart to be able to live day to day because I couldn’t – I just couldn’t.“Will you ever forgive me for using the dagger to banish you from Storybrooke?”“Oh, Belle, I never blamed you for that. Of course I forgave you right away! You couldn’t know.”Belle held him and they sat there for a while together. The sun was starting to set, and fireflies were competing with the fireworks in the distance. The world was celebrating something, but Belle wanted to hear more.“When I was in New York, I wanted to go into Bae’s apartment. I wanted to feel his presence, to apologize to him… He was so full of hope…”Belle nodded, remembering something, “I heard him telling Emma that this isn’t over… he said he will see both of them again… Oh, he really is the hopeful type.” she agreed.Rumple smiled a genuine, happy smile. “It wasn’t false hope either. He really did manage to see them all again and find happiness.”“Because of the sacrifice you made,” Belle whispered, starting to understand what drove him to such measures.“But back to when you were in New York, Robin-Hood took the apartment, didn’t he?”“Yes. And my heart was getting worse. I had no where to go. I couldn’t even rest my head in my son’s apartment. I really was dying then, and I didn’t want to find out what might happen if the Dark One was unleashed on the land without magic. By then I knew that magic *can* exist outside of Storybrooke. I asked Robin for help, but Zelena was pretending to be Marian, and came into the hospital to taunt me-““Ho- Hospital?” Belle cut in, her eyes round as saucers.Rumple waved it away in dismissal, “She gave me one last idea how to protect people from my rotting heart.”Belle hugged him, mumbling, “I’m so sorry.”“Oh, this new idea, to use the author, was a bad one. But I was just so desperate to stop the darkness from taking over that I listened.”“You never told me how bad it was,” Belle breathed.“I couldn’t,” he whispered, “I had no words to describe how I felt. I kept seeing my boy’s face when he realized that he was dying and that Henry didn’t even remember him.“He brought me back because he trusted me. He believed in my ability to help him get home to his loved ones, and I didn’t help him. I didn’t help him! I just lived instead of him. I killed him by letting him believe in my unlimited ability to find loopholes for everything. He didn’t want to die. He would never resurrect me if he knew the price.”He was holding Belle, urging her to understand. She was still mumbling about the suffering he’d endured while being tortured by all those evil brutes in Neverland.“Belle, look, I was tortured before. The underworld was a nightmare and that was also meant to be forever. So, the unspeakable brutalities that I suffered in that New-Hell, even if it would’ve been forever, it couldn’t compare to the excruciating guilt I felt with every moment I lived instead of Bae.”They sat there for a while, watching the critters fly by. Belle was trying to sort out her emotions. She wanted him to tell her… more. She wasn’t sure what, but she really needed him to keep talking. It was so hard for her to understand how he could let these horrors happen to him in the Neverland-hell.“When Emma was the dark one, Why did you tell me that you injured yourself, during the ogre’s war, because you were afraid to die and not to get back to your son? If you didn’t care for Baelfire you would just run, without injuring yourself. Why did you suddenly change the facts and make yourself sound like a coward?”“I didn’t feel worthy of being Bae’s father. Not while I was living the life that belonged to him; the life that was meant to be his… He relied on me. That’s why he brought me back.”This hit Belle hard. he didn’t even think he deserved to love his child“But, you were not dark… wasn’t it easier then?”“I don’t know…Even after the darkness left me, every day that I continued living was because I didn’t want to disappoint you. I was so tempted to find a quiet corner and kill myself, because I was a mortal and was able to die. I wanted to escape from my own skin. It felt like I was living on borrowed time… borrowed from my son. I wanted to give it back.”“Is that why you took the darkness back?” Belle wanted to know.“I… didn’t. ” Rumple admitted.Belle started. “You didn’t?”“The darkness was not going anywhere when Emma killed Hook. That’s not how it works. It couldn’t just end.”“But it did end,” Belle said looking admiringly at her husband, “twice!” She suddenly remembered the first time Rumple sacrificed his life when he killed Pan. There was no dark one then either.“It wasn’t supposed to be possible” he said, talking too quickly, and blushing.“Excalibur was destroyed when Emma stabbed Hook, and I was saddled with all the darkness again.”“Oh,” Belle contemplated, “so Excalibur chose to put the darkness back in you.”“I don’t know why,” Rumple shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and looked down, “maybe because the darkness was used to my soul or something.”“Didn’t Emma use the fact that you became the dark one again to make you go to the underworld with her?” Belle asked, “why didn’t you tell her the truth?”“I couldn’t admit to her that I was chosen, it was too embarrassing, so I lied and said that it was my own choice. Anyhow, I was really glad for an excuse to go. I was hoping to see my son from the underworld somehow. I was hoping that there can be a possibility to exchange my life with his. I knew that Emma’s plan to give half her heart would fail, but I was hoping to give my whole heart to Bae.”“But you couldn’t reach him?”“It didn’t matter. I realized you were going to have a baby, and I knew I must get back and make sure you and our child would be safe.”“I know why,” Belle said suddenly, “I know why Excalibur chose you to take all the darkness back. It was safest with you. You were the purest and truest hero, and only you could hold this much darkness and stay golden.”Gold hugged her. He knew that she loved him and he thought that she was giving him too much credit. He didn’t think of himself as a hero at all. But now he wanted to tell her everything. He had to make her understand him.“Belle, our child was in danger. I knew I had to stay and keep the danger away. I couldn’t afford to dwell on losing Baelfire, as much as it broke me. I had to stay and fight for our new child.Belle nodded. He did protect their baby.“When I studied the books about how to keep our child safe and how to maintain a world where our baby could grow up in peace, I realized that I had everything I needed to create that new power.The only missing ingredient was someone powerful who loved Bae as much as I did. I didn’t think Emma qualified because she was with Hook, but the day I found out that she still loved my son was the happiest day of my life.Of course I couldn’t pass that opportunity up! Do you understand, Belle? I could finally have everything. My son would be alive, our daughter and you would be safe, the darkness would really be gone and the world would be a better place for all of you to live in. It didn’t matter to me that I would have to pay an eternal price, and surrender myself to the mercy of sadists forever.”Rumple looked at Belle, “don’t you see? Knowing you were all safe was worth every bit of it.”They hugged and held on to each other, and Belle fully understood the beauty of her husband’s heart.She saw for the first time how a hero’s death and suffering could be his happy ending, if it was meaningful to him. If his heart’s desire was his family’s safety and a better world for them to live in, it’s the happiest thing for him to ensure it, no matter the price.
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"Was he worth all that trouble?" Zelena asked. She was still holding the dagger, the object with which she had, a second ago, tortured her caged victim for her own entertainment."Every bit of it," Gold answered, tears dripping from his chin. He was on hands and knees, having just been broken physically and spiritually by his tormentor.She watched him, standing behind him as he crawled. This was how she liked him: so docile, so vulnerable, so completely hers. So available for her to toy with. How did he get there?"You can't hold on to both," called Zelena. She was taking a hazardous risk, and she grinned to hide how apprehensive she was.To her, the choice was clear: the son was going to die anyway. She knew that any normal person would hold on to the dagger and punish her.She also knew that she was not dealing with a normal person, here, at all.Zelena knew this.How did I not know this? How could I have been so blind about my true love? "You always choose power over love,"Power.Where does the greatest power come from?Love.Love is the most powerful magic. That's what he always chose over... over my approval.Approval.Did I confuse love with approval?