I still think that if Bae had come home after living in NL for a long time, he would have come home (and not by random chance) at a time when Rumple and Belle were already living together because Rumple would still be in the process of trying to get the Dark Curse set up. The AU wouldn’t go so far as to break up the one of the canon+endgame ships (and in pointing to this, our other two major ones are together on set, Snowing and Philora). So…no. If it is a Neal AU then it’s after Rumple and Belle meet and fall in love. Then Rumple can have his happy ending (Bae) and his happily ever after (Belle) but it’s Nealfire who doesn’t have everything because he came back before Emma was born and so they never meet, never have Henry which ruins Regina’s happy ending as well (hence the black wardrobe). And that’s my shipper side showing.
*goes to sit in Rumbelle corner and glare*