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She shot him.
In the shoulder.
To save Hook.
Rumpelstiltskin jerks back at the explosive impact, collapsing on the ground with a hard crack, as the sound from the gunshot and the clatter of his fallen cane echoes around him like a scathing laugh.
Belle cries out descending over him with a frantic combination of fear and concern rampant in her dazzling blue eyes.
The physical pain was excruciating. The mental would be numbing.
He hears her foot steps and glimpses blonde hair but he doesn't catch sight of Emma's face. So he has no idea what her own reactions are to the violent act against him.
He needs to see her face.
Rumpelstiltskin manages to sit up, barely. Belle tears off a piece of her skirt and uses it to press over his bloody wound. It burns. He ignores it, and ignores her. His attention directed elsewhere.
His eyes, dark and inscrutable, watch the unfolding of event before him.
Emma was helping Hook.
"What have you done?" He seethes, staring furiously at her back.
"I warned you that I'd shoot you if you didn't stop," she says dismissively, her attention never deviating from the beaten pirate. Hook seems to be angry at her as well. He keeps slapping her hands away; rejecting her obvious attempts at assisting him.
Clearly frustrated, Emma finally snaps something back at him. Rumpelstiltskin can't quite make it out but whatever she's said seems to have persuaded Hook to calm down and let her help him.
Pulling the pirate to his feet Emma forces Hook's arm over her shoulder. Her other arm encircles his waist.
It breaks something inside of him as he watches the pair stumbles past, making their way off the boat, and away from him.
Emma doesn't even look at him.
Yet Rumpelstiltskin can't seem to look away from her.
It's Hook who does look over at him.
Whatever the pirate sees in his face in that instance sparks a light in the man's eyes and causes him to smirk smugly and openly at his fallen nemesis—suggesting a victory that is not yet apparent to him
Belle assures him that everything will be alright. He wants to believe her. But it disheartens him in a way that makes his blood boil-that Emma could hurt him just to protect Hook.
She'd made him the villain here. And Hook some sort of victim.
It felt like a betrayal. It felt familiar.
He realizes then what Hook had seen—what had made the pirate so damn pleased.
And he wants it gone. Needs her gone from him.
So he lets it pour out of him.
Any love he'd had left for Emma spilled out from his body with the blood that now flowed from the wound she'd inflicted upon him.
And pour and pour it did.
When Rumpelstiltskin finally does heal himself, he holds Belle's hand, and convinces himself that Emma Swan is now as meaningless to him as that decaying pool of blood.
Because if he doesn't; he'll hurt her.
Because if she can break his heart, he's afraid he'll crush hers.