Breathe Symphonies: To Feel Through You

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Word Count: 8706

Summary: Part 13 in the series, set chronologically after "Evening Sets" The story of how Gold and Jolie go from just kisses to lovers.

Feedback PLEASE at: triplepirouettephile (at) hotmail (dot) com Or just hit the little button there.

AN: This idea spring from the reviewer who asked how they go from the tentative emotional state in Evening Sets to the super cuddle bugs that they are. :) Also, I didn't think I could write Rumbelle smut. This doesn't EXACLY qualify, but it's as close as you'll probably get from me. Oh well. Title from "I Won't Make You" by Something Corporate (I suggest you look up the lyrics, they are fantastic)

They venture out of the house hand in hand on the second day of the curse. They've watched from the safety of their porch, but to mingle, to step out of the relative safety of their home where they both know the truth into the world where everyone is living a lie... it is far too surreal for that first step to be simple.

Belle hesitates at the top of the stairs. She has memories of leaving every morning, walking with her husband to the library, then pecking him on the cheek before heading inside. She feels her husband's fingers squeeze hers; fingers that aren't as callused or bony with nails that are no where near as thick or sharp. He caresses her knuckles with his thumb, a blank look on his face as he stares out at the street.

His eyes are a different matter. She thinks he may be just as scared as she is to leave by the way they wrinkle up in the corners, the way he narrows them at the morning beyond the comfort of their home. Belle lifts her foot and steps down, looking up at him. One corner of his mouth quirks up and he's slowly following her.

Their walk into town is slow- less for his ability to walk quickly and more for the opportunity to acquaint themselves with the world around them. Every house, every shop, every street feels familiar, but it is as strange and foreign as they can imagine. They're quiet, conversing only with half smiles and raised eyebrows as they make their way the few blocks to the library.

Gold follows her in through the big wooden door, never letting go of her hand. She leads him through rows and stacks until they are at the back of the cool, dark library. She opens the plain door before them and reaches against the wall to flick a switch. The small room's overhead light flickers to life, revealing a windowless room with a neat desk. They both know without having to question: it is her office, it is her desk.

He slips in behind her, letting the door click shut. "Are you ready for this?" he asks, his eyes dark and concerned as she slips her hands from his, running it over the stacks of old books on her desk. Belle takes them in for a moment. She's never been in this room before, but the desk tells a tale of at least three different projects half done, and she knows every little detail about each. It's disconcerting, to say the least, but she pushes back the nerves before they can get the best of her.

His eyes are roaming carefully over her when she looks up with a small smile on her face. It is odd to see her in the long black pants, the little heels, the blouse that doesn't quite fit to her body the way the bodices of her dresses did. Without her blue dress and hair done just so he doesn't know how to frame her, but the false memories tell him that he's seen her like this a thousand times. "I'll be fine. We have to do it sometime, right?"

Brave, always so brave. He steps froward and cradles her chin in his free hand, letting his thumb caress over her cheekbone. "I'm two blocks over if you need me."

Belle bites her lip, trying to hold back a groan at his chivalry as her hand covers his on her cheek. She turns her head, pressing a kiss to his palm. "I know. And I'll be here if you need me." She meets him as he leans forward, his lips soft, still just a hair timid as they first come to rest on hers. Like every kiss they've shared in the last day, that disappears quickly and is replaced with the need to kiss and be kissed, to hold the other close and not let go, that they'd been denied so long in their old lives.

She pulls away first, smiling and licking her lips her eyes sparkling with restrained passion. "You should go. You'll be late."

He lets his thumb run over her bottom lip before stealing another quick, chaste kiss. "I'll see you at home?" Her nod does nothing to keep him from feeling like he's abandoning her all over again, but he still forces himself to step out of the library and back on to Main Street.

Two weeks. A fortnight. Fourteen days. It goes by slowly and in a blur all at once. Each step for him somehow feels like rote routine and a brand new experience. It takes him almost three days to get used to the size and shape of the cane, to get back into the gait of a limping walk. It takes him the full two weeks, including the weekend, to do a piece by piece inventory of the entire shop. He doesn't just want fake memories of each piece that's followed him to this world, he wants to lay his hands on each one and reassure himself that everything is there, know the real history and the altered history, to see that everything is as it should be when their world is so upside down.

Jolie spends her days at the library. She shelves books and checks out tow-haired children's reference materials for homework and haggard housewive's romance novels. With each face she sees she's given two stories: the story in their world and the history from the last. She doesn't recognize every person, but she finds enough familiar to notice that it keeps her off balance. She's always home before her husband, though, and finds that she enjoys the time alone to gather her thoughts. She cooks dishes that are familiar to her because she's made them before and meals that she's never eaten before in her life. She finds that pesto is as delicious in her memory as it is on her palate, but that the recipe that she 'remembers' for stuffed peppers leaves quite a lot to be desired.

There's a television in the back room, but Belle and Gold slip into habits from their old lives. After dinner most nights he lights a fire and she curls up with a book. He used to proofread contracts and work on spells, now he balances books and works on a detailed record of all that is in the shop. Instead of sharing two high backed chairs they sit entwined on the couch, her head leaning on his shoulder or in his lap, his arms around or under or through her. In this world they can be close because there are no boundaries to maintain, there are no kisses they can't have, no caresses that will be too personal, no advances that will cross lines.

Except for the one last line they have yet to cross.

Belle closes her book and rests it on her stomach. Her head is in her husband's lap; above her he's hunched over the arm of the couch, scribbling furiously into a ledger. She closes her eyes, sleep far closer that she thought.

Fumbling hands. She's clumsy, all limbs and stumbling back and her hair keeps falling over her eyes and in his face. He doesn't seem to mind but she cares because this should be perfect. It needs to be perfect. She pushes his jacket off his shoulders and he continues to press her back toward his bed until it hits her behind her knees. She falls and he tips over onto her.

There's a moment of horror on her part, laughter on his, then his lips are on her again. She feels his hands, his fingers, over her sides, against her ribs, in her hair.

Slowly clothes are shed until they're skin to skin, body to body in the most intimate way possible. He slips inside of her and she moans, clutching desperately at his back. They move together, sweat slicked and out of breath. He whispers in her ear. "Jolie."

"Belle?" His voice snaps her out of the false memory. His fingers are on her neck, feeling her pulse jump beneath her skin. "Are you alright? You're flushed."

Her heart is racing with the images that flashed across her mind, her breath coming in small gasps, and the poor man is concerned for her. "Fine," she whispers, taking his hand in hers and kissing the knuckles. "I fell asleep, dreamed I was running from something. It was just a bit startling, that's all."

His eyes drift over her intently for a moment before he decides to take her word for it. "Perhaps we should turn in then?"

Belle shakes her head, shifting and sitting before pressing a kiss to his cheek and standing quickly. "No, no. You've still got work to do. Besides, I think I'd like a shower."

She doesn't mention that it'll be a very, very cold shower.

"Darling?" she calls from the kitchen as he watches the fire spark to life. Even the few tiny flames in the fireplace already do a lot to take away the harsh chill of winter pervading their home. He smiles and limps to the kitchen, cane clicking softly all the way. She's standing before the counter, slowly sliding a spoon from her mouth. Jolie tosses it into the sink, a tiny frown on her face.

"Fire's started," he says, stepping behind her. He rests his cane on the edge of the counter and his hands gently find the swell of her hips.

"I need you to taste this," she says, reaching for another spoon. "I don't think it's quite right, but I've followed the recipe exactly."

He catches her hand before she can reach the spoon and instead dips her finger in the cookie dough. She watches with a smirk as he lifts it to his lips over her shoulder and slowly licks the confection. He kisses her knuckle before freeing her hand and slipping his arms around her waist. He thinks for a second, smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "How much vanilla did you put in?"

Her mouth slips open and her eyes sparkle. "I forgot the vanilla."

He lays his chin on her shoulder and watches her work, measuring the brown liquid and dropping it in, stirring the batter and making sure it's all mixed properly. He watches each graceful movement; so simple, so mundane, but beautiful in the simplicity. She lifts the spatula, peeling a bit of dough off and dropping it into her mouth. "Oh yes," she whispers, "that's what it was missing." She starts to offer the spatula to him, but he spins her in his arms, claiming her lips. His tongue slides against hers, the last remnants of sweetness shared between them.

He pulls away just slightly, a mischievous glint in his eye as he licks his lips. "That was perfect," he whispers.

She smirks at him. "There are cookies to make."

"They'll still be there," he says as his hands reach around to untie the apron she's wearing, letting it drop to the floor. He dips his head, kissing her collarbone and cleavage, tasting the flour and cinnamon that have coated her skin as she mixed them. His lips move up past the pulse in her throat and any protest she has dies with a moan. He presses forward, her hips hitting the edge of the counter as he sweeps his hands out behind her to clear the space. The bowl hits the wall, spoons and measuring cups clattering into the sink and on the floor. He doesn't care.

He grasps her hips and she gives a little jump, just enough to help him lift her onto the counter. She wraps her legs around him and suddenly it's far too hot. They paw at clothing, pulling and reaching until there's nothing between them and they're writhing, panting and moaning and whispering and moving and she takes fistfuls of his hair while she kisses him hard...

He jumps up, his body in a cold sweat and very, very convinced that the dream was very, very real.

Jolie Belle, his mind supplies- it seems he can't think one name without thinking the other rolls over, mumbling some sleepy words he assumes amounts to something akin to asking if he's okay, without ever opening her eyes. He gently pats her arm, tucking the blanket up around her shoulders. "Yes, yes. Go back to sleep."

He shifts and as quietly as he can pushes himself out of bed, limping without his cane to the en suite bathroom and closing the door quietly before he turns the light on. He leans on the counter, staring at himself in the mirror.

The memories come the most at night. He figures it's the best way the curse can really deliver them and doesn't care to understand it further than that. He runs a hand over his chin and stares at the man in the mirror that he is in these dreams. There is never any scaly skin, no hair rough as straw, no nails like talons... he is just a man, a man with a limp and a gold tooth and a woman that he loves more than life itself. And by the gods does he show her.

From the very first night, for two weeks straight, he's relived the most erotic moments that have never happened in his dreams. He's had her in the kitchen, on the stairs, in the back room of the Pawn Shop and in the middle of the forest. Every touch, every reaction, ever sensation is etched into the back of his mind, and they're starting to take over his every thought.

He loves her- Belle, Jolie, what ever he calls her- he loves her. It has been easy in the last two weeks to fall into a safe dance of the same types of touches they had in their old life with the exception of the kisses. Long kisses. Soft kisses. Heated kisses. Gentle kisses. Kisses that linger for minutes and pecks as they cross paths... but they never lead anywhere. He keeps his hands on her hips, or her shoulders, or on her back pressing her toward him, but he cannot go any further.

He's tried so hard to keep these memories at bay, even though they kiss and touch and share a bed night after night. Despite the dreams of memories that they likely both share, he cannot make himself go any further, not when she doesn't move to initiate, either. He won't do anything to shatter the tenuous life they're building. He's gone months without the sound of her in his life while he waited for Regina to cast the spell from that dank dungeon, he can't imagine messing this up now. He lets them be dreams, and just dreams, until he can find a way to tell how she feels on the entire subject.

Gold turns the faucet on and lets it run cold. He'd like to say that if they never become more than dreams at least he has her kiss. But he is no gentleman, and that is a lie. Now that he's had her kiss, he wants all of her.

He leans down, splashes his face with some water, and quickly shuts off the light before slipping back into the bedroom.

In his office desk at the shop there is a picture: he's in a suit that sits at the back of his closet and she's in a simple white dress she keeps in a box in the dresser. There are no flowers, no decorations, and in the background the Town Hall is bustling with its daily business, but he knows: it is their wedding photo.

"Mr. Gold," she whispers just after he kisses her, the town official stepping back and signing the paperwork swiftly to give them a moment alone.

"Mrs. Gold," he murmurs against her lips, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He can't help but steal another kiss from her, even as she giggles into him, her arms wound tight around his neck.

Her father snapped it from the other side of the room, or so the false memories said. He'd been in attendance, but unhappy about the wedding. Gold couldn't say he didn't understand the man's sentiment: he doubted any father would want their daughter married to any man that held the reputation that he did. At Jolie's request Moe French been there, served as a witness to their nuptials, then snapped the picture while they weren't looking.

Gold wishes he'd lived this moment that the photo captures: he's looking at her with such reverence, such love, and she back up at him, a blinding smile and her sparkling eyes bright and wide, still caught in the embrace after their first kiss as husband and wife. Moe French had mailed it over, and memory told Gold that though Jolie saw her father every once in a while, he had not seen the man since that day.

Gold lets his fingers run over the frame, biting the inside of his cheek. Of all the memories he has, of all the intense encounters, even the memory of that very night where he pealed the satin gown from her body like a second skin, this is the only memory he wishes he actually, really had.

Belle doesn't remember it until she goes into the small room. The memory assaults her like a physical force, making her stumble and her heart beat fast.

They hadn't yet gone on a date, or even spent all that much time together, but in the small special collections room (that really only held the original copy of the town charter and a few first editions and signed copies of books) he takes her hand and stops her. He slips the door shut, and with a gentleness she knew so few people think him capable of, he kisses her.

He kisses her for the first time in the special collections room, soft and gentle, his warm mouth to her surprised lips, his hand sliding up to cup her jaw while her 'Mommy and Me Story Time' group waits just outside the door.

Her keys fall to the floor with a clatter as she reaches out, one hand grasping his elbow, the other sliding down his arm, wrapping around the hand that holds his cane. His mouth slants over hers with just a little more fervor as his index finger lifts from his grip on the cane and tangles amongst her fingers.

Of all the things she remembers, all the erotic, sensual, charged moments between them, that one takes her breath away. She can almost feel the brush of his fingers on hers as he tries so sweetly to hold her hand while still supporting himself on his cane.

She wonders if she can find a way to make him do it again... she wants it to be a real memory.

There's an aching hole in him when he holds back. He comes home to her, kisses her lightly when she meets him at the door, and walks past her to deposit his briefcase in his office.

He's had her against that door, with the multicolored light spinning side-real over her naked flesh.

He hears her pad back to the kitchen, off on another culinary adventure for tonight he's sure.

He's had her on the kitchen floor, her skirt bunched up around her hips and his pants around his ankles with spaghetti noodles in her hair.

He sits in his chair heavily, passing his cane through his fingers over and over to keep his hands busy.

He's had her right here in this very chair, her kneeling in his lap and moving over him with her head tossed back in ecstasy while he traced spells over her skin with his tongue.

He stands quickly, trying to stop the images from assaulting him. His mind tells him there isn't an inch in this house, a room, a flat surface, that he hasn't had her on. He takes long, heavy steps until he's on the back patio taking gulping breaths of relief. Here. He hasn't had her here.

The reprieve only lasts a moment, just long enough for him to catch his breath. Almost too soon she's standing behind him, her hands pressing around his waist as she hugs him tightly. "Dinner's nearly ready," she whispers into the back of his shoulder, curling into him.

His hand covers hers as it rests on his stomach. "What culinary adventure are we embarking on tonight?"

He feels more than hears her chuckle, and it turns his stomach upside down. His patience is growing thin, but it's a sweet torture he has no choice but to endure. "Sandwiches and canned tomato soup," she says, pressing her forehead to the back of his neck. "I was working on an alfredo sauce but it, um... curdled."

"Curdled?" he asks, turning with a sly smile on his face.

Belle shrugs at him, biting her own lip. "Don't ask me how, I did it and I still don't know."

Dinner is quiet, like always, but there's a strange tension in the air that's been slowly building for the last week. They sit across from one another at the table, talk about their day and their remembrances of their world past and contrast it to the new world they inhabit; it's still new enough to be a topic of conversation.

She always feels caught in the middle of who they were (Belle and Rumpelstiltskin, maid and master, not quite lovers but not just friends) and who they're supposed to be (Mr. and Mrs. Gold, pawn broker and librarian, husband and wife). Sometimes their dinners together are easy.

This one is not: it's awkward, full of heavy silences and half sentences, hidden glances and averted eyes. She's not sure what makes it so awkward, so different, from last night's dinner. Last night they talked from the moment he arrived home until she fell asleep tucked beside him in bed.

Even with the odd pauses and uncomfortable half smiles, it still feels more right than wrong. He joins her without question at the sink, drying each dish as she hands it to him and slipping the china back in the cupboard, their shoulders bumping softly. When she finishes he stops her from grabbing for the other dish towel, instead taking her hands in his and drying them softly. "I'm sorry," his eyes look at her from under lowered lashes, his attention far too keen on drying her hands. "I've... been lost in thought today."

Belle takes one of her dried hands, slipping it over his jaw as she smiles up at him. "A whole new world, a whole new life... you're allowed to have a not so good day, you know."

Just a hint of a smile slips over his lips, the breath rushing from his lungs in frustration. He thinks of the memories slipping in and out of his head, of kisses and cuddles and even crying. Each one is so very perfect it makes his heart ache: these are the memories he wants to create for her, but it's been weeks of drudgery and confusion and stress as they try to fit into this life. He's not sure how to respond, how to explain what he feels, so he takes her hand from his cheek, kissing her knuckles gently. His hand slides to her wrist, slipping over the thin bracelet there as he holds her gaze.

She pulls away too soon for his liking, a shudder running through her as she takes the dishtowel from his hand and spreads it over the handle of the stove. "How about a fire tonight?" She shrugs smartly, her busy hands the only give away that she's anything but completely confident in her suggestion. "But this time no books, no work, just... you, me, and a fire?"

He looks down, his smile far less genuine as he turns away, his emotions running rampant too quickly for him to even think of picking one or burdening her with his discontent. "I'll get it stared." He sets his mind to the task, carefully arranging the logs in the fireplace while she putters about in the kitchen, hoping to clear his mind before she joins him. He's come to no other conclusion when she pulls away like that other than he somehow has upset her. She's done it often enough that he's begun to wonder if he's not what she was expecting, if her love for him was somehow tied to his magic and his curse. If his human self- even this confident, powerful human self- is not enough for her.

He's lost in that dark thought, sitting on the floor with his back against the couch and watching the flames start to lick at the wood, when she joins him, her bare feet making almost no sound. She smiles, hands him a glass of red wine, then sits down between his knees.

It's reflex as they slip against one another, his arm going around her to pull her back against him, his good knee rising up for her to drop her elbow on it. It feels like they've done it a thousand times before, but they've really only ever sat like this once. He takes a long sip of the wine, placing the glass on the floor. His hand falters for a moment. He wants to thread it in her hair, comb her curls through and kiss at the nape of her neck, but this isn't the time for that. He settles on putting it on his own thigh, close enough to her to brush the edge of her pants, but not quite touching.

They're quiet as the small flames lick up to a fire, watching the hearth intently. She relaxes into him with every sip she takes from the glass, finally putting the empty crystal down next to his half full one. "This is so much harder than I thought," she whispers, sliding her arm over his where it still rests across her stomach.

"Oh?" He tries to keep his tone light as his fingers grip hers as tightly as he dares, but he expects disaster with every word.

"Each day, looking at these people remembering who most of them were before... even just the two sets of memories. They don't mix up in my head, but I have to hold my tongue. I have to remember the right name. It's so very much more difficult than I thought it would be to keep it all straight. Every minute that I'm out there I'm worried that I'm going to mess it up."

He sighs heavily, his hand drifting from his thigh to comb back her hair, he can't restrain himself any longer, if only to be able to see a little clearer the expression on Belle's face. "And you get to come home to me: the epitome of absolutely sparkling dinner conversation." A little of the imp shines through in his words, the theatricality of it far too self-debasing for her liking.

She catches his hand, pulling to down to her lips and kissing it fiercely. "Good conversation or not, I can't wait to get home at night. I can't wait to see you, to know that when you come through that door that I can kiss you, and hold you, and you understand and don't mind whether I call you Mr. Gold or Rum." She pulls his other arm around her tight and snuggles back, resting her head on his shoulder and burying her nose in his neck. He wraps around her, even his bad knee pulling in, wishing to protect her as much as he can. "Even with the not so good days and awkward moments, there's nowhere else I'd rather be. There's no one else I'd rather be with."

He kisses her temple, closing his eyes tightly, anguish evident in his voice. "You're not... tired of this old monster? I fear I'm... less than you expected me to be."

"You are who you are," she whispers dreamily, letting go of his hands to wrap her arms up behind her and around his neck. "I've never asked you to be anyone else, have I?"

"No, no I suppose not." He turns and kisses the inside of her elbow, some of the fear and frustration draining from him. Heat, not from the fire but from their embrace, starts a slow simmer in his chest. His fingers trace tiny circles on her stomach, his nose drifts across her hair line gently. Perhaps here, now, entwined like this, he can gather the courage to show her how very much desires her, to let her see how much he wants to make her happy.

"This would be perfect," she says softly, her eyes closing and every last bit of tension melting from her bones, "if we could just stay like this forever."

He tamps down the desire, stilling his fingers and holding her tight. "Yes," he says, agreeing in mind but not body. The moment is beautiful, wrapped in and around the woman he loves, but he longs to show her the depth of that love, to take her on the floor in front of the fire and worship every inch of her. But she is content, and happy, just being in his arms. He won't push, even though it becomes more difficult with each passing moment.

She was sure he would do something. Sure that he would take her, kiss her, love her, after that conversation. In front of the fire, with wine making them both a little looser, she was sure that he'd let go of whatever was holing him back. But he couldn't... or wouldn't. And she finally let go, sinking into his arms and trying to accept whatever he would give her. It truly is a perfect moment, even if he doesn't have any desire for her which she still finds so hard to believe, it is heaven to stay there.

And they do, watching the fire leap and lick at the wood, seeing the sparks fly up and the ashes crackle and pop. He eventually relaxes his hold just a bit, his right leg sliding out straight again and his hand drifting over his knee to rub gently.

Belle shifts carefully. The warmth of the fire on her skin, the man she loves wrapped around her, the alcohol in her blood... she closes her eyes, sleepy but content as the fire finally takes the first few crackles toward dying. She lets her hand fall down her husband's arm, intent on taking over the ministrations on his knee: she knows just how he likes it rubbed. Even though the memory had originally been one brought from the curse, she's already proven it to be true more than once. As her fingers slip over his hand it stills, his knee momentarily forgotten.

It is just the barest hint of movement, his thumb brushing up into her palm, but then his index finger moves, pulling her fingers down and taking her hand in a way that she had only just remembered this morning. He had never, never done that in their old life. But right here, right now, he recreates that memory for her making butterflies flutter in her stomach and her heart beat faster.

"Do you have memories, Rumpelstiltskin?" she asks carefully, her eyes watching their hands, watching the way his fingers intertwine and tease hers, weaving them in and out and together like his did in her memory before clutching them tight.

"You know I do," he tries to keep it from sounding condescending, but she's pushing him to the limit of his control as he holds her. He drifts his lips over her shoulder, dropping a kiss to her skin before he settles them there to murmur into her. "What kinds of memories?"

She turns her head until they are nose to nose, her voice low and dangerous. "Do you remember our first kiss?"

His head quirks to the side, the question taking him off guard and leaving him off balance. His eyes go wide and blank as he turns inward, looking for the memory from a life never lived. His fingers squeeze hers and she thinks that he must remember, he must know and she waits for a smile to light up his face, for him to realize what's happened. But instead he frowns with a hint of a smile, his voice relaxed and calm. "No, no I... when I try to think of it, all I see is the morning we woke up here when I kissed you in the kitchen."

A tear gathers at the corner of her eye, it hurts as surely as if she's been punched or kicked in the chest. Her heart feels like it stops, the butterflies leaving her stomach and the bottom drops out from beneath her. "I remembered this morning," she manages to get out without her voice cracking, her words soft and low. His eyes narrow and his face falls as he watches how she reacts, but she can't hold his gaze. "In special collections. That was where it happened. And I- I..." She takes a deep breath, pulling their linked hands to her chest, holding them tightly over her heart. "You held my hand, just like that: my hand on top of yours on your cane and your finger... just that one finger at first and more than the kiss, more than any kiss, I wanted to live that. I wanted to live that sweetness of you trying to hold my hand and your cane at the same time."

He feels emotion gather in his throat as he pulls her tighter to his chest. "Oh, Belle..."

She's not sure why it hurts so much, but it does. She'd been thinking about that short, sweet memory all day, trying to come up with ways to recreate it, to share it, to make it more real. The idea that their shared history in this world, the false history that is bringing them together as sure as the real history, could be different, terrifies her in a way she doesn't understand. She looks back up at him sharply, her eyes narrow and accusing. "But you don't remember. You don't have that memory. Why?"

Even though she holds tight to him she looks like her heart is breaking, like he's somehow betrayed her by not having this memory. He shuts his eyes tightly, thinking hard and waiting, waiting for the memory to surface but it never does. A fluke, or by design, maybe, but it's hurting her, and he can't bear it. "I don't know." The words rasp out of his throat at he holds back as much of the emotion as he can. "Tell me, Belle, tell me about our first kiss." The words are pleading, but her face crumples at the lack of answers.

She curls into a small ball in his embrace, and he's sure she's crying now, though her breath doesn't hitch and her shoulders barely shake. "I hate this place," she whispers vehemently. "I hate it, Rum. I love you, but I hate it."

He wraps more tightly around her, letting her hide from this world in his chest for as long as she wants. "I know, love. I know."

The tear tracks on her face haven't yet dried when she pulls from his arms, taking her empty wine glass and leaving him with a soft kiss on his cheek.

She feels his arms around her, winding from behind. It's his favorite place. Looking over her shoulder, or spooning her in bed. She can't deny the way it feels, wrapped up in his wiry limbs, the feel of his lithe body behind her, holding her, making her more than she is alone, the feel of his nose in her hair, his lips against the soft skin of her neck.

His hands drift over her sides, not light enough to tickle, but strong enough to posses. Nimble fingers slip under her shirt, releasing buttons and clasps and taking their time driving her nearly to the edge just by his swirling touch.

The feel of him growing hard behind her, the way she presses into him and makes him moan. She closes her eyes: she always closes her eyes, and just waits for the sensation. The feel of him. The feel of them, together. It's not one moment, but many; hundreds of kisses and touches all rolled into one moment, one overwhelming encounter.

She reaches back, her fingers in his hair, tugging him toward her, to be closer, though it's not possible unless they merge into one being. His skin is softer than she thinks it should be, his hair less wiry, but it doesn't matter. Power is coiled in his muscles and even if it's not magic- she knows it's not, he's lost his magic- it doesn't matter.

The tip of his tongue traces her name in scripted letters across the back of her neck. She wants to turn, but she knows she shouldn't. She wants to feel him closer. She turns; he is gone.

She wakes up, alone and wanting.

He slips into the bedroom in the darkness to find her panting, laying sprawled on the bed with the sheet tangled around her legs. "Love?" he asks as he approaches, sitting gently on the side of the bed by her hip. She left him hours ago, her eyes puffy and her heart heavy. He intended to follow her up in short order, but he stayed on the floor in front of the fire's ashes, trying to work through the knot of emotions and trying desperately to find the memory of their first kiss among the litany of erotic memories his mind kept throwing at him. He smooths the tangled hair back from her face so he can see her bright eyes. He's about to ask her if she's alright, but Gold's seen that look before in his memories, specifically the ones he's been trying to avoid. She's glazed in lust, her chest rising and falling with shaking breaths, her teeth worrying her lip, her fingers pulsing with the need to touch and her body strewn wantonly before him.

"It was a dream..." she whispers, reaching out and running her hand up his thigh, stopping it just short of where he wants it, needs it, to be.

His mouth goes dry. This territory is so achingly familiar, but so new that he feels like a nervous teenager. "Was it a good dream?"

She smiles slowly, her hand drifting from his leg to clasp his wrist. "The best." She tugs roughly, pulling until he can barely stop himself from falling on top of her. They are chest to chest, nose to nose, and his heart is pounding. "Do you dream about us?" she asks, running her lips gently over his stubbled cheek.

"Oh yes," he replies in a breathless rush, his hands shifting so he can hold himself above her. "Very vividly." He's not sure of this: the timing isn't quite right after the day they had, her eyes are dark and glazed like she's still held captive by the dream she was having, but he can't restrain himself any longer. He wants her. He's always wanted her. If she wants him, he can't say no.

Her hands dance up his chest and down over his shoulders. "I dream you kiss me, Rumpelstiltskin."

He says nothing, but leans down, taking her lips as gently as he can manage with his pulse pounding in his ears. He slips his lips lower, dropping tiny kisses over the corner of her mouth, down her jaw line, over her neck and then back up to take her earlobe gently between his teeth and give it a gentle tug. She moans quietly in her throat below him. "What else do you dream of, Belle?" Her name falls from his lips like a prayer.

She reaches out and takes his hand, placing it on the middle of her chest before letting go and tangling her fingers in his hair. "I dream you touch me, Rumpelstiltskin."

He is as powerless to stop it as if she held his blade and was commanding him. He sits back, running both hands down her sides, mapping inches that he alternately knows and has never touched. He bunches the cotton of her camisole under his fingers and exposes her stomach, drifting his palm across it. Down her hips, over her soft skin, behind her knees as he lifts one leg, moving it around his body and dangling it over his lap so he sits between her thighs. His hands travel back up and to the bed by her shoulders. He looms over her, not touching but staring.

They're both trembling at the raw intensity of moment. It is a moment unlike any they've actually shared yet. He sees how she wants him, he knows it is plain how he wants her. Yet, he cannot just take her, he still needs the invitation, the permission; to hear out loud that he is what she wants. His eyes hold a challenge and his brave, brave girl rises to the occasion without having to be asked. "I dream you make love to me." She trails a hand up his arm until it cradles his jaw, a smile drifting across her face. "Make love to your wife, Mr. Gold."

He lowers himself slowly until he's barely keeping any weight off of her. "Just Mr. Gold?"

Belle's legs wrap tightly around his hips and he can't help the sigh that escapes him when he feels the way she fits around him. She takes his head in her hands roughly and kisses him hard, tongue and teeth battling for supremacy and he has never been so happy to lose in his life. "The Golds can be together in ways that Belle and Rumpelstiltskin never can. It's the one thing about this world I don't hate. I have you, all of you." She nips at his bottom lip between her teeth, her breath coming in short, heavy gasps. "Give me all of you." She barely finishes the sentence, his lips won't let her.

Compared to his memories- his vivid, drawn out, detailed memories- it's like a flash. They're limbs and rolling and getting caught in bedsheets and just when they're finally falling into a rhythm her hair keeps falling between their lips like a nuisance. It's sloppy and sweaty and full of groans and sighs and even a sharp moment of blinding pain when he leans on his knee the wrong way. It's nothing like the memories he has.

And that's what lets him know that it is so, so real.

Just like every other memory of Storybrooke, he realizes, his memories of being with her are too perfect, too right, too simple. They make sense, but only to a point. They're not messy. There isn't any fumbling because they're both too eager. There isn't any shifting because somehow she's already half off the bed. She never stops him because he still has socks on and she finds it ridiculous to be wearing only his socks when he's otherwise naked. He never has to ask her to stop digging her heel into his thigh because she's pressing on his bad leg the wrong way.

He pauses, pulls back, and looks at her: her lips are swollen and her cheeks are bright red and her hair is in a knot that his fingers most certainly aren't making better. She's naked and sweating and so very, very beautiful as she looks up at him, a smile full of wonder on her face.

It is a smile like in the wedding photo. Suddenly he understand how she felt when he held her hand just that right way: it's like a vindication of these false memories. It makes them more, it makes them real, it makes them a little less fake and turns it into a memory that they'll both have because it absolutely, really, truly happened between the two of them.

"Rum?" She laces her fingers in his hair, smoothing it back behind his ears and slipping her hands to his cheeks. "Are you alright?"

"Never better, love." His attention snaps back to the moment as he leans down and kisses her gently. Softly. He kisses her like he would want to kiss her for the very first time because their real first kiss... it was wrong. It was desperation and frustration, it was full of need and without care and she crumpled in his arms as memories assaulted her. But this is how he would want to kiss her: soft, gentle, his lips just touching hers like a sweet torture. He slides his hand down, lacing his fingers with hers. He doesn't know, can't remember, but this is what it would have been. She's the impatient one this time, pressing her lips more fervently and wetly against his, shifting her hips up and curling her calf around his good thigh.

They fumble and they slip. She giggles when they bump noses and he squeals when she finds that spot below his left knee that is ticklish. It takes them more than one try to find a position that brings them both pleasure and their rhythm falters more often than not, but it's worth it.

It's worth it when he feels her body pull tight around him, when he hears that guttural moan fall from her lips and he sees her eyes shut tight in ecstasy. He buries his face in her neck, holding her tight as he can. He has yet to find the end to his pleasure, but he's overwhelmed. The reality of it, the contrast to the thoughts, the fantasies, the moments he spent in his old life wondering what her skin tasted like and how she would look wound around his hips... he can't quite find exactly how to feel. If he lets go, he may fall apart.

Belle moves again, running her fingers tightly through his hair and holding him to her as she rocks her hips with shallow movements. "Stay with me," she whispers. He gathers her tightly in his arms, his hands gripping up over her back to hold her shoulders like a lifeline, matching her tiny movements. He's not sure exactly what she means by it- if he's drifted away too much in this moment or if she's talking about their future, but he knows there's only one answer.

"Forever," he growls out into her neck, his lips kissing and nipping at the soft skin there. There is no doubt in him anymore. There is no distrust in him over her desire.

"Forever," she whispers back. She arches her back up and it's enough to spur him back on, to move harsher and faster. Her breath comes out in gasps and whimpers, and soon he's pulled tight as a bow string, losing himself in her arms.

Her hands roam over his back as he catches his breath, as he commits this moment to his memory to never, ever be replaced by a false ideal. He shifts until they are side by side, still wrapped up in each other, using his fingers to brush the tangled hair away from her face. "The deal is struck," he whispers, moving forward to kiss her softly.

Their kisses drift into caresses over skin that turns sticky as the sweat dries, their sated passion turning to exhaustion as the clock ticks over the deep hours of the night.

This time, when he sleeps, he isn't woken by dreams of things that have only happened in false memories. He dreams of the things that are to come.

He stares at her, unabashedly and unashamed. She's naked, hair tousled and knotted with just one bit of the comforter wrapped around her hips. Her arms over her head, the tiny laugh lines softened with sleep, she looks like an angel in the rays of the early morning sun. Her breathing changes, followed shortly by her soft, raspy morning voice. "You have the worst habit of staring at me while I'm trying to sleep."

He laughs and leans over closer to her. "How do you always know?"

Belle rolls and shifts over, meeting his lips with hers in a slow, lazy kiss. "I just do," she says softly against his lips. Her eyes drift far away. "I guess I don't, though. It's odd, how things like that slip out- a life I haven't lived in my mind as sure as I'd lived it."

He wraps his arms around her loosely, an attempt to stop her when she starts to roll away. "It is disconcerting," he nuzzles into her cheek with his nose, "the things we've done but yet never actually did. The things that I might or might not know about you." His hand soothes up her back as he pulls her to his chest, burying his head in her shoulder. "It sets me off balance with you. I'm not used to that. I don't like it."

She chuckles low and seductively, wrapping her leg up and around his hip under the comforter. "So you like to be in control..." she leads, her voice full of mirth and mischief.

He rolls them both, pressing her into the mattress with his weight, pinning her under him as her legs wrap behind his knees. He peppers kisses down the length of her throat and she stretches, her arms reaching over his head to run down his back. "You know that I do..." His words are dark and suggestive as his lips travel over every inch of skin they can reach.

"Perhaps we should stay in today," her voice cracks and she giggles as the rough tickle of his stubble slides over her neck.

"And what would that accomplish?" His words are still rough with sleep and heavy with longing, lower than she can remember hearing his voice- even in her fantasies. "Aside from... obvious ends." Her stomach flutters at the way the words fall from his lips, the deep tone, the suggestive way his eyebrows play on his forehead.

She shifts, turning nose to nose with him so she can look into his eyes. "It gives us time," she whispers, brushing a soft strand of hair away from his eyes. "We're still not..."

"Fixed," he finishes for her, lowering his eyes and burying his face in her shoulder, shame creeping through him as he holds her tighter, wishing he could hide in her as he let her hide in him last night.

Belle pulls back, searching out his eyes again with as much seriousness as she can muster. "We are not broken." She kisses him gently, waiting until he can overcome his emotions and kiss her back before she lets the words fall from her lips to his. "We just need time; time that we never had to know one another like this, time that was taken away from us."

He smiles lazily at her, the expression almost, but not quite, reaching his still sad eyes. "Then we'll take the day off, both of us."

When he kisses her again it feels a little less strange, a little less new, and a little more like their future.