[ Belle had been expecting something other than this - something like relief, or joy, even if it was tinged with disbelief and unacceptable, but nothing like this. Nothing like the straight faced denial that she's faced with. What is she supposed to do in return to this? She knew for a fact that Baelfire was alive, she felt it in her very bones and she knew because it had come from Rumple himself. The messages Ariel had passed on for them before she returned for her true love -- there was no doubting that.

Hand dropping, Belle shakes her head and offers a weak smile. ]

A friend of mine, Mulan, she found him - with Philip? They healed him.

[ That's as much as she knows; she has very little idea how Bae got from the Enchanted Forest to Neverland; she only knows the bare details that Ariel was given before she returned to Storybrooke. ]

It's not optimism if it's true, is it? Because I know he's alive. Rumple wouldn't lie about his son.