Rumple & Belle - or Robert & Emilie - playing some sort of game while waiting for their hamburgers.
(I am inclined to believe it’s Robert and Emilie, since that is distinctly Bobby’s real accent and not the ‘softened’ Mr. Gold one.)
Hearing that voice, the adventurer froze mid toast. Her companions, looking up at the figure behind her which she herself couldn't see, reached for their weapons almost on instinct. Of course, this was to no avail as they stiffened seemingly on command – it was on command.
Belle turned slowly, looking up at the beast she'd had to leave behind – a chapter of her life she'd left behind, hand raised to keep her companions docile. She'd pictured seeing him again many times before, but never in a million years had she imagined to see tears in his eyes.
She swallowed, letting out the softest of breaths, a breath with which his name should never be accompanied.
“Rumpelstiltskin.”
It happened on instinct, but it became proof that only she could get away with punching the Dark One in the jaw.
---------------------------------------
What if Rumple came across his discarded maid during her grand adventure?
Mr. Gold doesn't exist. Not in that sense, anyway. Regina went back on their deal, and Rumpelstiltskin (human despite the broken deal) is locked in a cage below the Storybrooke hospital – even below the asylum that hides there. Because he remembers everything, he spends each and every single day of twenty eight years – days that are all one in the same – waiting for the Saviour.
Lacey doesn't exist. Not in that sense, anyway. Belle's cursed memories have made her doubt what's real and what isn't for the day she's spent locked up – the day that's felt like nearly thirty years. She's gone a little mad. One day things change, and suddenly a door is left unlocked; a door leading to her escape.