( he's seen the unicorns in the stable and has less derision in seeing them back, though that's with the uncomfortable knowledge that they have been so domesticated that don't quite remember that they should want to be free. considering they had escaped on their own, he's not desperate to shove them back in a cage. heart or heartless, he still is all too aware what sort of cost one pays when freedom is forcibly taken away.

he can't tell if he should feel relieved or not that Emma could tell that he was someone else without his memories of Storybrooke. he'd offered an explanation she didn't need, and yet somehow the uncomfortable ache lingered. should he apologize for how he'd treated her? it felt like apologizing for who he used to be, and that wasn't something easily said, though maybe it wasn't inaccurate either. there's no more nostalgia or rose-colored glasses to skew his perspective of his past. he'd been wrong to assume the worst of all, and living as that person again just made it clear. it was funny how being forced into service by the worst human he'd ever known had shown him that the rest of the world was not as despicable as he'd imagined. )

I'd tell you my survival instincts were about the only instincts I had back then, but in the end they could have been better. ( he'd ignored them in favor of making a bargain with an evil queen, and even if he'd defied her he'd paid for it, more than once. ) I don't want to see you hurt, either, and it's worse knowing it was me that was responsible. ( that's the problem, isn't it? knowing that he'd forced a gap between them, even if it hadn't been a conscious choice of the man standing in front of her. )