A/N: It's been awhile since I've done fanfiction of any sort but once my friend got me watching Once Upon a Time, and I started to fall in love with these cuties who are in love with each other, I knew I'd be coming back at some point. And last night's episode was enough for me to crack. This is going to be multi-chap, so by next week, it will probably be AU, but this is what I would like to see happen, and there's going to be angst and fluff and more importantly, more Rumbelle-centric than the show could ever possibly be because... But ahh, that's another story. We can talk about my frustration with the lack of on-screen Rumbelle another time.

The basis for the fic (kind of) is "Poison and Wine" by the Civil Wars, because this song will always be a Rumbelle anthem but my goodness is it so freaking applicable right now.

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Or much of anything because I'm a poor college student.

Chapter One

You only know what I want you to-
I know everything you don't want me to.

He's trying so hard to rationalize what he's done. Rumple loves her—he truly, deeply loves Belle. He gave her the dagger, the real dagger. He wants her to have his whole heart and his whole self. Her love has changed him, but how could he possibly let Zelena get away with this? He promised Bae, promised that his death would not be vain.

Belle was giggling and clutching tightly to him the whole walk home and though he tried his hardest to just be and enjoy the fact that she was his for all eternity—this beautiful, hopeful ray of light amidst all his darkness, he was so incredibly sullen on the inside. And yet he was so genuinely thrilled, but so much of that joy was overshadowed by the nibbling deep down in his heart of what he planned to do. So when he kissed her lips gently one last time before she heads off to their room to sleep (she begs him to join her, and he's dying to—but he would never forgive himself if their first time was surrounded with so much deceit), he tells her, "I love you so much. Don't ever forget that." She looked up at him with those intense, curious blue eyes and quirked an eyebrow.

"Rumple, you've been a gentleman about this for so long, but we're engaged now. I hardly see the—''

"I want it to be special," he whispers, and he wishes this was under different circumstances, because he's really not lying now. He wants this to be special for them.

She sighs, a little frustrated.

"You're not going to break me."

He swears he feels his heart actually tear inside his chest at that. She has no idea.

"I want to do this properly—like how its done where we're really from. Our wedding night."

She leans in close, gives him a saucy smile and responds, "Well then let's make for a quick engagement, shall we?"

He gives her that sexy smirk and then a peck on the forehead before turning around and letting her go off to bed—and damn it if we wouldn't have taken her right against the refrigerator if he didn't have the crushing weight of guilt nailing him to the ground.

He removes the dagger from her purse after he's sure that she's sound asleep, all content and adorable as she's curled in a ball, surrounded by fluffy pillows—two supporting her head and another one that she's holding tightly next to her—no doubt something she did every night while he was gone. His heart breaks a little bit more, and he almost considers not going through with it until he leaves the bedroom and conjures the imitation dagger to replace his real one. His resolve strengthens as he steps out the door and approaches his black Cadillac. Zelena had to die. Rumplestiltskin never broke a deal, and he wasn't going back on the final promise he made to his son.

She didn't have her powers now but who knew what she could do in the future. He couldn't take the risk. She needed to pay for killing Baelfire and every heartache she caused thereafter. For the year he spent locked in a cage, forced to be her pet as she desperately tried to seduce him and abuse the dagger's power. For the pain she caused him to cause Belle. For the security in knowing that she could never, ever hurt Belle again if she's dead—whether or not Belle can forgive him for breaking his promise to her, he has to keep her safe.

And when he walks out of Zelena's cell, the clattering of the pieces of her flesh-turned-ceramic body still fresh in his ears, he expects to feel relieved.

Instead, he runs outside and vomits in the alleyway.

There's no going back now. He avenged Baelfire's death, but that doesn't change the fact that he's gone. And now he's in danger of losing the person his heart belongs to. The only person outside of Bae that his heart has ever belonged to.

But villains don't get happy endings.

As he quietly shuts the door behind him to the sound of small squeaks in the hinges, his heart starts pounding out-of-control. He sees a book laid open-faced on the coffee table as he walks into the living room, his chest growing tighter as he averts his gaze to the cup next to it—her cup. Their cup. She must had been admiring it earlier, and he can see a vision of his darling Belle now—marveling over how strong their love has been. It's still going so strong, even with a few chips. And it is then that the terrible Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One, is reduced to a guilt-ridden, sobbing shell of a man.

He's dry heaving and clutching at the carpet as he falls to his knees and wishes he had the heart to just whip the cup at the wall and shatter it once and for all. He's in too deep. He thought he was making the right choice. But no. He was just vengeful.

He just wanted to take the easy way out and not let Zelena have her second chance.

He was a coward. Always and forever a coward.

Tears continue to pool in his eyes until he can't see straight and his breath catches and—

"Rumple?"

He draws in a breath that's something between a gasp and having the wind knocked straight of him. He cowers lower and slowly cricks his neck around to see Belle hovering near the couch. He doesn't know how much she saw, but she's standing there all sleepy and concerned in an oversized "Storybrooke High Wizards" t shirt and flannel pajama pants, and he's so in love with her and so guilty-looking and so fucked up.

He looks like a scared, wild animal and it's all she can do not to run to him. There's something stopping her. Something in his eyes that gives away that something is terribly wrong.

Oh gods.

That's when all trace of sleepiness leaves her body, and she sees the dagger, flung onto the carpet next to him, and instead of running to him, she fumbles over to her red bag that she's left on the counter, procuring the fake dagger, staring at it, and then alternating to stare back at him. Her hand holding the knife shakes, and it drops to the ground. She huffs out several breaths, and her eyes go wide, searching around the room, searching him, desperately trying to find some answer that tells her not to expect the worst, that this isn't what it looks like at all. The room feels like its spinning, and she barely hears him as he chokes out,

"I only wanted to protect you and Bae."

She shudders, and she has no idea how her knees haven't given out yet.

"Rumple," she strains.

"What have you done?"

A/N: Yeah, so I just really wanted to get inside Rumple's head for no other reason than I needed to make sense of the episode last night. Also, depending on the response to this first chapter, I'm totally willing to get the next one up ASAP. It's finals week here for me, but honestly, Rumbelle writing study breaks would be fabulous. Soooo... reviews?