Chapter Text
And then he sees her. But is the scene that broke the last piece of his heart, what a thought, he still believes that his heart can feel. A first kiss…probably a true love kiss, between heroes, he thinks.
Belle found love again.
Well, she is a hero, she deserves that and he deserves to witness the powerful magic of all, a magic he will never have…again.
She broke the kiss with a peck in that thief's cheek. 'Jealousy', he suppose is the right word, but after all, who is him to feel that kind of sentiment, just a once upon a time a husband of a beautiful princess…a hero. He hate the word. When the thief start to walk across the street, Rumple wants to run, broke the door of the library and ask her why she do this, why she left him in the darkness, but 'why' is not the correct word, 'how' sounds a better option, how she can get over him?, over them…He knows the answer, but after all the passionate nights, when he lies with her, naked in their bed, drawing random figures in her back while she sleeps, he thinks that all that nonsense vows about be with your soulmate in good and bad times are really true, that if he already took the path of a villain just to have all he wants and share it with his true love, then she would not leave. In the good and bad moments he repeats for himself while a peaceful sleep rest over them. Peaceful is a sensation that he only experimented three times in more than three hundred years. His first night with Milah, when all their future looks promising, when they only wanted a family. A second time, when he died with his father, what a briefly moment as he is represented by a hero. And finally, with her, with Belle in his arms after their wedding at the woods. When he really thought, this is really making love, this is my happily ever after. But, after all, true love is only for heroes. Is in that moment he hates to be a character in a fairytale book. Without notice, he is just standing outside the library, with his fist in the door, ready to ask for explanations, but he stops, 'what is the point?' he thinks. She would be terrify if he sees him, probably she would hit him and tell him she hates him and beg to get out of her life. So, as a coward thinks he is, he just take a step back and starts to walk to his shop.
Emma sounds a good example of 'you can have love again in your life'. But the more she thinks this, the more is unreal. Since she meet him, Belle really thought that all the happy ends in her books are true. Indeed, you need to work to get it, to gain it. But when your true love lies, behaves like a villain and you only believe that he is a good man, a good man indeed, then the blindfold drops from her eyes and she see the man…the monster, and then she decides that is better to be a true hero than be a true love, if the thing she had with him was love. After she leaved him across the town line, thoughts about the first time she hug him, kiss him, found him, saw how he dies, how he comes back from death, how he believes in their love when he is still a prisoner of the wicked witch, their wedding, her first time as a woman in love, indeed making true love, the morning and nights filled with sweet kisses, all erased by lies. She needs to be strong, to believe, as Henry said to her. But how to continue with a life with love is her heart belong to him, to the man that once upon a time saw sited at the spinning wheel. Now, she has a chance, probably the last one, with Will Scarlett. Another broken heart, another man in redemption. He is a nice friend, she listen to her. The first weeks after Belle vanished Rumple there were some encounters with Will. First to help the merry men to start again without their leader. Then sometimes while drinking some tea at Granny's. Their first talk lead to a few meetings at the library. That meetings became dates and without notice, she not longer feels alone, just good. Will explains to her one night about his love, and she for the first time in weeks spoke the name of her true love. That night they just shake hands to say goodbye, and in that moment Belle thought that is time to go on. To move, to not feel alone anymore. That night she takes out her wedding ring and deposited inside the chipped cup, their cup. That was the last time she step in the pawnshop. Place that now is closed for better sake.
That same week she starts to believe that the thing with Will can work, and apparently he starts to thinking the same as well, that is how at the end of this date they kiss. Is strange at the beginning, to kiss another mouth that not taste like magic, like true love magic. Is a nice kiss, but is not love, and it doesn't feel like the beginning of it. But is nice, to feel. With a last kiss in his cheek they say until tomorrow without not more words. Now, behind her door, she feels pain in her heart, a longing for the man that she will never see again. Something tells her to open the door again, to at least breath the cold of the night, to feel less alone, and with a click the door opens, to reveal only the darkness of the night. How she wishes that darkness were from somebody else.
"So all is settle I suppose." He asks.
"Yes, the heroes are working on that." Regina explains.
"Heroes…the only ones with a happily every after…" Rumple sighs.
"That is just a book speaking." She said as is the only sincere answer to his thoughts.
"If my wife can just hear you…" and he stops, closing his eyes and trying to retain for a moment the pain that lies in that little black piece in his chest that probably he thinks still works after all. "Will it work?"
"After all these years Rumple, I think you should have more faith in me."
"Well, dearie, after all, this will be my third and hopefully, without any mistake from your part, my last time in here."
"A deal was struck. So, after you walk across the line, you will not remember nothing, not even us".
"That sound peaceful", he sounded tired.
"Is not like you are going to die…I can give you new memories as I did with Emma"
"Why you would that?"
"Because, I know how you feel, not bloody hero in here knows the two paths in this life, you deserve the life that the darkness took from you".
"So, how this is going to work?"
"The spell would bring back the good man you were."
"I don't remember when I was a good man, too much time in the darkness I suppose."
"Well, the spinner about I hear many years ago sounds a good version."
"Yes, it was a good face. Hope was a word in my life, even in the first years of my first marriage."
"Then, you can have it again." She answer.
With his back to her, he starts to walk to his new life...
"Do you think is possible, Regina?" he stops for a moment without turning back.
"What?"
"Found true love again…"
"If you can really believe it."
"Thank you for this second chance." He sincerely said.
"Is not a second Rumple, is a first one. Good luck."
In the last second, he remembers all his life, in the beginning full of hope, then his love for Milah, his brave boy Bae, the war, the loss of faith, the darkness, his dark love for Cora, the loss of his last piece of heart, the hero from Avonlea, the first encounter with true love kiss…his light, his wife, his Belle. Yes, is like dying after all. At least a part of him. Then, Rumple's head turns to Regina.
"Can you tell her that…once upon a time, a dark wizard loved a beautiful hero and the love that born between them lighted an entire black heart for a briefly moment. But that light cannot survive in the man I am."
"That is not fair for her. If you want to forget then Belle deserves to have the opportunity to get over you".
"She already did it." With a last sigh says "In another time and place, if I can just wish upon a star, I'll wish meet her when I was
Rumpelstilskin, the spinner of a little town."
"You never know, probably Emma can found another time portal." She says sarcastically.
After they share a briefly laugh, he response, "She deserves a hero, probably a thief sounds a good taste, don't you think? Besides, that is a chapter that will never appear in our book."
"I'll miss this side of you Rumple".
"I wish to say the same Regina, but I think I'll don't remember you". With a last sight he says, "Goodbye Regina".
"Goodbye Rumpelstilskin".
With his bag in the shoulder, he walks across the townline of some place call it Storyb…Maine, he thinks. To start a life as a new man, not, the man he always were, just a man called…Gold, he remembers. A man born in Scotland and currently living in New York as…he just walk with his sight lying in the horizon.