While I would like for Rumple come clean to Belle of his own accord, Emma blackmailed him into opening the portal to the UW by threatening to tell Belle about his being the dark one again. Rumple complied precisely because he didn’t want Belle to “know what kind of man he really is.” Just before he opened the portal, he asked Emma “are you sure?” to make sure she really knew what she was getting herself into. Rumple never wanted to return to the UW, having been there before.
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"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy