There were an extremely select few people that had ever truly known Rumplestiltskin. One of them was dead, another of them lost, and the last was sitting right here beside him. Well, she didn't know everything about his past, but she'd seen glimpses, the times when he would lower his facade just enough for someone to see deeper inside him. It was frightening, but Belle had always frightened him because she made him feel. To pretty much everyone else, he was a monster, he was the feared Dark One, and he didn't care if any of them ever saw beneath the surface. He didn't really care about what they thought of him because in his mind, he was right to do what it took to reunite with his son. Even if that meant having had to groom Regina in magic to the point where he knew she would cast the Curse that would take them to the world where Baelfire had gone.
"Yes, we can just be ourselves," he said gently, looking down at their hands that were locked together. That was just the issue, wasn't it? When it came down to it, Rumplestiltskin had a bit of a dual personality. He was the Dark One, which was staunchly different from the true Rumplestiltskin. Or had it been that the Dark One had simply twisted and corrupted the man Rumplestiltskin had once been? It really was difficult to tell where Rumplestiltskin ended and where the Dark One began sometimes. But there were times, especially in places where the Dark One was subdued, that he was able to be more himself, a little more free from the hold of that power within him.
"Of course I'll stay here. I wouldn't dream of being anywhere else. And we can't have you losing sleep over such a fact." He smiled at her. "Come the morning, a new adventure awaits us." He was rather curious at how different this place was to Storybrooke, and what better way than to discover it with Belle?