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Belle had meant to tell him over dinner. Make sure he was sitting down and relaxed before she shared her news. But her expression must have betrayed her, because Rumpelstiltskin took one look at her face and sprung off his chair, lurching across the room to catch her in his arms.
"You knew!" she laughed.
Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. "I suspected." His voice was mumbled against the crown of her hair. He kissed her there between words, nuzzling his nose affectionately at one point. "I didn't know. Not for sure. But there were... signs," he said, the last word a little lower, a shy look in his eyes.
Belle giggled. There were few secrets between man and woman. Even when they had lived in that great castle, with their rooms in different wings, he had been aware of her cycles and quickly learned to either give her a wide berth or to indulge her with some gift to lift her mood. "You never said a word."
He shrugged a little. "I didn't dare to hope," he whispered.
Belle looked up at that. Her hands went to cradle his face, then sweep his hair behind his ears so she could take a good look at him. His eyes were wide with emotion, his lips trembling on words he had yet to say. "But you're happy?" she had to ask.
Rumpelstiltskin threw his head back and laughed. A sound of true cheer, rather than the malicious giggle that she'd heard so often in the past. "Happy?" he wondered, bending his head until their noses brushed together, then sweeping in for a sweet, yet too short kiss. "You've just given me the best news in all the worlds, my love," he told her feelingly. "If this is not happiness, then I don't care to know it at all."
And Belle, who knew how much words mattered to him, tightened her arms around him. "I'm happy, too, Rumple. I don't think I could ever be happier than this."
She was wrong, of course.
Seven months later, a bawling baby boy in her arms and a husband who alternately hovered over her or stalked the hospital to command every nurse and doctor unfortunate enough to cross his path to check on her, Belle discovered she had only started to realize what happiness meant.
The End
03/10/16