Epilogue

A/N. Fair warning: a fluffy Rumple lovefest follows. He's earned it.

Thank you, Grace, for sharing the unbroken swing theory. It added a dimension to the story, giving me a reason for Archie, Bae and Emma to begin to second guess the expulsion. Thank you, everyone, for reading "Exiled."

After school, Henry is spotted going into the pink house.

Two minutes after he's entered the house, Regina's on the phone with the sheriff, in a panic over the boy's safety. Regina's concern sounds genuine when she asks, "What if the Dark One decides to take his revenge against the rest of us out on Henry?"

"He won't. He's a changed man," Emma says brusquely. "Besides, that prophecy thing doesn't matter any more. He was undone, prophecy's been fulfilled, end of story."

"Don't be naive, Ms. Swan. He may be related to you now, but he's still the Dark One and only a fool would trust him."

"Actually, no, he's not the Dark One, in any shape or form, any more. I suppose, in a perverted kinda way, we have you to thank for that. You going after that dagger pushed him into destroying it."

"Precisely why he must be kept away from Henry. Gold wouldn't dare attack me directly; he'd hurt me by hurting Henry."

"Bae and I gave Henry permission to visit his grandparents after school–any of his grandparents–as long as he checks in with us first. I trust him with Belle and Gold just the same as I do with Mary Margaret and David. If you're worried, why don't you call Henry and check on him, and kindly stop wasting the taxpayers' money by calling my office."

Ten minutes after Henry has gone inside, a black Mercedes parks across from the pink house, the driver spying through the bay window–until Deputy David gives the owner a ticket for parking in front of a fire hydrant.

After that, Henry's seen dropping in at the pink house pretty regularly, when he doesn't have ball practice: with his parents and the Charmings at work, Henry enjoys having a place to hang out, even if Grampa Rumple isn't much help with US history homework.

A few days pass and Rumple finally allows himself to be talked into visiting his shop so he can decide what to do with all that stuff. It took him several lifetimes to amass that collection, but he doesn't want any of it any more: he's in a new lifetime now, and besides, without magic, some of this stuff is worthless. The rest belongs to the past. As he and Belle pore over the inventory list that Gold so meticulously maintained, Rumple decides abruptly nothing here is worth the work. To Belle's amazement, he tears a chunk of cardboard from a box and in magic marker scrawls on it: "Take what used to be yours. No charge." Then he props the front door open and escorts Belle to lunch.

He encounters Blue in Granny's. He glances at her, then through her; she raises her chin. "Good day, Rumplestiltskin. I must say, what you chose to do impressed me. You made the right decision."

"Indeed?" is his only reply.

Slowly, others come by, some offering a welcome home, some offering business dealings. Belle greets them all equally warmly, but Gold is disinterested in receiving either type of visitor. He warms up to Home Depot clerks, Bibs 'n' Babes clerks, the Lamaze trainer and Doc.

And then he surprises everyone when, the day after Serenity comes out of the hospital, all pink and perfect, the Meanest Man in Town is seen pushing her pram around the park. The surprise expands into shock when he and Serenity join the library's infant lapsit program. There's resistance: the mommies don't trust him, they tell each other—although in private they watch the Dark One buying groceries with his one-week-old tucked away in a Baby Bjorn; they watch him throw a stained towel over his shoulder to protect his Armani jacket when he burps his one-month-old; they watch him drop to his hands and knees on a picnic blanket to demonstrate crawling to his studious five-month-old, never minding the humiliating laughter of passersby; they watch him clutch the hand of his tottering one-year-old, as snugly as he once clutched his cane, and shrink his steps to match hers as they patter through Belle's garden to chase butterflies.

Even more aggravating: on October 16 of each year, the Meanest Man leaves his precious daughter with his precious son for a week while he takes his precious wife on an exotic vacation to some tropical isle. Belle will never say where they go: the Golds are notoriously secretive.

The mommies watch the Dark One do all these sweet things for his family, then the mommies go home and punch their own inattentive husbands in the arm.

Two months after the Golds' return, Regina is put on trial; a month later, it's Hook's turn. Lawyers have to be conjured in from another realm. The Golds are asked to testify for the prosecution; Rumple is also called by Regina's attorney. Both trials end quickly in a guilty decision. When asked on the street what they think about the irony that two of the "jurists" who voted to exile Rumple will now be exiled themselves for three years, the Golds refuse to comment.

Just before the sentence is carried out, Regina must face another trial: a class action lawsuit brought by Jefferson and Grace/Paige's Storybrooke parents on behalf of thirty children caught between two families by the curse. Rumple allows himself to be dragged out of retirement to represent the plaintiffs. He's soon back at the library lapsits, though: the jury reaches a decision in under two hours. Regina is forced to sell her business and her mansion to pay the penalty.

When Regina and Hook have served their sentence, Regina is offered a deal similar to the one offered Rumple: she will be allowed re-entry to Storybrooke if she never practices magic again. For the rest of her life, she will have to wear the magic-inhibiting cuff Rumple took from Greg and Tamara. Regina rages for three unbroken hours before she relents–and when Snow fastens the cuff to her wrist, Regina promptly marches off to Jared's Jewelry.

She has the cuff encrusted with diamonds.

"Serenity's changed us," Belle observes, leaning over the playpen.

"And she'll do it again," Rumple adds. "Over and over."

Belle studies her husband: funny, although he claims to feel older without magic, he looks to her more youthful. Perhaps it's his slightly shorter haircut, which draws attention to his cheekbones, or perhaps it's the exercise and sunshine he's getting with Serenity. But most likely, she thinks, it's the peace he's found with his family around him and his days of deals and power chasing behind him. "You changed yourself."

"I promised you once that I'd start listening to you, and so I did." One thing about him hasn't changed: he's still uncomfortable with praise, even from his wife.

If the sins of the father are visited upon the child, perhaps the good deeds of the child may be, to some small extent, visited upon the father. At least, that's what Archie wonders, because Rumplestiltskin starts dropping in on him soon after arriving home. At first it seems impersonal: Chamber of Commerce stuff, questions about zoning laws and municipal taxes and road development. But gradually the topics become slightly personal, and eventually, Rumple asks to "avail [himself] of" Archie's "former professional services." Archie considers this a breakthrough for Rumple. . . and a great professional coup. He expects to hear confessions of horrible deeds, followed by pleas for assistance in changing evil ways; but instead Rumple's questions tend to be about current theories of child development. It seems, Archie thinks, that even if the town hasn't, Rumple has left the Dark One behind on Neverland.

"What was it like, those years alone?" Archie asks, and Rumple smiles ruefully. "Which time, Doctor?" Archie then remembers the silence of the Dark Castle, and he comes to realize it's not isolation Rumple needs help coping with: it's integration into society. And so this is how the psychiatrist directs their conversations, with the frequent reminder that Serenity will look to her father just as much as to her mother for guidance in learning how to deal with the hurt people cause each other.

Rumple is relieved the dagger (which, oddly enough, he allows to be put on display in the library, along with other historical artifacts on permanent loan from the permanently closed shop) will never tempt anyone again, especially himself.

And he's mostly glad, he says and Archie believes him, to be free of magic, at least of the kind of magic he was cursed with. Rumple is moving on, he says–and Archie learns that he really doesn't lie.

The ice cracks, though it never really thaws, between Rumple and Blue when at age four, Serenity is hospitalized for bronchitis. She's there for three days, with her parents taking turns at her bedside–and with hospital volunteer Blue making frequent visits, bringing balloon animals, origami creatures and coloring books. Serenity takes to the austere nun. She's a strange child, Belle admits; she's drawn to the shy, the lonely, the misunderstood. Belle thinks she'll become a psychiatrist like Archie; Rumple remarks (but only to Belle) that if they were living in the Enchanted Forest, he would suspect their child of being an innate possessor of healing magic. But they're in the Land without Magic, so of course that's impossible.

Belle doesn't remind him that Serenity was conceived in Neverland.

In the three days of her hospitalization, Serenity becomes quite fascinated with–well, the Golds aren't sure if it's Mother Superior or the fairy queen. Blue provides a welcome distraction from the pills and the needles, and Belle expresses her gratitude warmly–Rumple, less so, but still sincerely. For what parent can stay angry with someone who remarks, "This child is a gift to Storybrooke"?

Rumple suddenly remembers a small detail that's been scratching at the back of his mind. "When she came to Neverland, Emma had a pair of handcuffs that inhibited Regina's magic. That was your doing, wasn't it? Your fairy dust."

"Regina had to be stopped. With the Dark One's powers, she would have been out of control. I've seen many Dark Ones come and go: she would have been among the worst–and, I imagine, the shortest lived." Blue seems to deliberate with herself, but she finally comments, "You were the longest lived, and, as Dark Ones go, the most self-controlled."

When they're alone, Belle observes, "That's the closest you'll ever come to a compliment from Blue."

"There was one other, even if she didn't intend it," Rumple grins wickedly. "She called Serenity 'a pure-hearted little soul'–and whether that comes from nature or nurture, Ren is half mine."

Belle, with her easy smile and affectionate nature, wins over the children who visit the library, and as a result, one by one she wins over their parents, so much so that when Archie chooses not to run for a third term, her name appears as a write-in on many a ballot. She simply laughs at this: she laughs easily these days.

Rumplestiltskin is never completely forgiven, nor are Hook and Regina; but the specifics of the Dark One's crimes are relegated to the mists of time and the anger the community holds against him grows vague. Fear dissipates, for who can fear a slight, graying man pulling a preschooler in a Red Flyer wagon to the encouragement of "Faster, Daddy!"

And when Rumple stands outside Storybrooke Elementary with unashamed tears wetting his face, waving as Snow White ushers his five-year-old into the kindergarten classroom for the first time, Hook, passing by in his Trans Am, pulls over to watch. The pirate thinks about Milah before he shifts into first gear and continues on to work.

Hook isn't sure, but when Serenity turns to wave goodbye to her daddy, he thinks he sees sparks of gold fly from her fingertips.