The years he had lost to Storybrooke had put him into closer contact, at least superficially, with the inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest than he had ever had before the Curse. It was as true a fact as any, and yet the world as represented by the Nexus and its environs was one almost unimaginable after such limited boundaries as those of a single town and the forest that shielded it from outsiders. He had seen more new faces in a few days than he had in decades. As of yet he could not say of who of their number might be friend and who might be foe, and the task of sorting out the two seemed daunting even without the addition of the promise of new worlds behind new doors.

Still, that uncertainty of the world around him was not what had driven him to Ruby and her smile. Or, at least, not all of what had seen him seeking her out as he had. Even where that second felt as if it dragged on into an eternity and he had had to wonder whether he had stepped too far past the fragile boundaries of their acquaintanceship in being more honest with her than she might understand, he could not and would not regret having said the words to her.

Her smile then was like the dawn breaking, tossing aside his uncertainty for the pleasure of having made her smile and proven that she was not as far from him as the lapse of her memory might have suggested. "You don't have to thank me, Ruby," he told her instead, giving her a smile that quirked a second wider before settling into something easier. "Not for telling the truth."