Rumpelstiltskin tries drinking. He's rarely without his hip flask, even on deals. He doesn't care what people think of it. They probably don't even notice the habit. Too busy with their own problems. Too distracted by his theatricality.

It doesn't matter. Drinking doesn't help. Alcohol doesn't affect him. Stuff strong enough to kill an ordinary person with one sip sort of works, but it's foul and bitter and burns his throat on the way down, so he doesn't touch it unless he's having a particularly bad day.

He sees her everywhere. Every brunette has her face unless he looks again. She's at his spinning wheel, in the chair by the fire, at the bottom of his bottle.

He thinks there might be some magic at work, that she left some figment of herself behind when she kissed him. Sometimes the images are too vivid, too real. He turns and she's holding a tray of tea, smiling at him. She's waiting in the foyer. She's making dinner. Sometimes she's happy, sometimes she's angry, sometimes she's disappointed. Those times are the worst. He likes her smile, but he would take her wrath over seeing all his failures reflected back at him in her eyes.

Always, he reaches out to touch her. Always, she evaporates beneath his fingers.

But always, he hopes. This time. This time she's back. This time she's real. He can't help himself.

Once he gets his memories back in Storybrooke, it all starts over again. He sees her on the street corner, in Granny's diner, walking in the door of his pawnshop. She's in the back room, she's waiting on his front porch.

He knows by now that she is not there. That doesn't stop every time being exactly like the first time, because there's that bloody stupid spark of hope that always comes back no matter how hard he tries to quash it.

So when the bell above the door tinkles and he looks up, and it's her walking in, his breath leaves him. He takes an unsteady step towards her, wishing he was ready to get his heart broken all over again. He wishes it didn't hurt this much anymore.

But there's something different about this time. Whenever she appears to him, she knows who he is.

This time, she doesn't.

He reaches out. Grasps her shoulder.

And it hurts. It hurts just as much as every other time he's seen her. But she is warm beneath his palm and her eyes are blue and her hair is tangled and she is perfect and here and alive.

It hurts so much that he can't breathe, and he pulls her to him like that will release the iron band around his chest. It doesn't, but it's a different hurt, and he's never been so happy to be in pain.

She doesn't know him yet.

But she will.