Chapter Text
Belle woke up on the floor in her apartment above the library, still dazed from the Heroes and Villains memories.
He used me. Again. He created this fake reality where I was his wife, and we had a family together. How like the Dark One to use a cheap trick like the author to manipulate me for his own gains rather than put the hard work into our relationship, she sniffed. We’re supposed to be true love. Why can’t he be honest with me?
In the safety of her mind though she admitted he had spun quite a nice fantasy for them. In the new story, Rumplestiltskin had been a true hero like those of her books. He was the Beast-slayer not the Beast. Children cheered when they saw him coming down the path on his white horse with his heavy golden armor shining brilliantly in the sun. The people adored him and rightfully so. He selflessly helped everyone simply because it was the right thing to do: her handsome hero.
And, at the end of the long day, her knight in shining armor galloped back to her, to the cottage they shared. It was a surprisingly quaint home starkly contrasted to his magnificent Dark Castle with all its expensive trinkets and furnishings.
In the story, he would rush through the door, his eyes filled with nothing but love and kiss her passionately, sweeping her off her feet.
The hardest thing about Rumple being an incredible hero was the time they spent apart as he saved kingdoms and rescued distressed maidens.
What was even more remarkable to her was that they had a child, a son, in this alternate fairytale. Rumple had written a story where it wasn’t just Belle and him even though that would’ve been enough for her. They had a family together. A family full of love and goodness. She didn’t even know Rumple wanted another child. She wished he had told her.
I suppose in his way he did, she sighed.
Rumplestiltskin had been terribly devastated by the death of Baelfire, his first son. She always figured he was too wounded to try again and—although Belle secretly yearned to be a mother, having cherished her own relationship with her mother—she knew it was unfair to expect that of Rumple who already had the experience, and it didn’t turn out well. She needed to be patient and supportive of his loss. Still, in the short time she knew Neal, she felt as though she were his mother in a strange way. She was also heartbroken after his death.
She didn’t know the author could just create beings like that. She felt a sharp pain at the realization that the author could take away that most cherished being as well. Belle wanted desperately to hold her tiny baby, to snuggle him, and kiss him again. It had felt so real, so wonderfully real: the little smiles, the ten little fingers and toes, the bundle wrapped in a small baby blanket, the new baby smell she didn’t know she needed, the soft cries and the piercing wails, the warm feeling of the baby pressed against her chest, breastfeeding. Her chest shook with sobs as she realized her body had lost everything that made her the mother of a newborn.
I’m just me again.
She craved her baby more than anything. It felt like a piece of her heart had been ripped out of her. This fate was just too cruel.
Although she could never endorse Rumple for his evil actions, she had to acknowledge that she was happy in the alternate reality. They were at peace for once in their lives, and everything felt perfect and easy.
She wiped her tears away.
Belle knew Heroes and Villains had been written to give the heroes terrible lives and the villains the best lives. She wondered what her life in the story meant about who she was. As much as she hated to admit it, she had been happy.
I’ve failed. All I ever wanted was to be a hero, and I have failed in that. She rose to her feet. I refuse to believe it is too late though. I have done enough enabling. I am going to confront Rumple for the beast he is and prevent him from hurting any of the heroes again.
Belle smoothed her skirt and held her head high. Fueled with a new fire, she stormed out of the library and into the streets of Storybrooke where she saw others picking themselves off the ground and recovering from the effects of Isaac’s writings, likely as disoriented as she had been a few minutes ago.
She pulled her burgundy jacket tighter around her shoulders. The air outside was a bit chilly.
It was at that moment her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she noticed several missed texts from Will Scarlet:
Hiya Belle you alright?
Belle?
That was one helluva ride eh?
Look I know we haven’t talked much or seen each other for days now but I still wanna know you’re okay. I don’t remember seeing you in the story at all.
Text me
Belle sighed and ignored all the messages, stuffing her phone back into her pocket.
I’m sorry, Will, but confronting Rumple is more important right now.
Belle swung the door to Gold’s pawnshop open and nearly ran face first into the author, Isaac. She was so surprised to even see him there that she didn’t have the chance to be angry at him.
“He’s all yours, lady,” Isaac sneered and scurried out the door.
Yes, I suppose he is.
Belle slammed the door behind her. Isaac was a leech, but Rumple was a bigger issue. She hoped the Charmings would find a way to stop Isaac, but she couldn’t let Rumple get away with everything. She owed it to herself and everyone else who had been cursed in the book to stand up to her husband.
She turned to face him.
He looked out of breath and confused, so opposite the hero she had seen in Heroes and Villains which confirmed to her how fake it all was.
“Belle! You came back for me,” he whispered quickly, leaning against a nearby display case.
Belle flooded with rage. Of course, he would think that. “I came back to make sure you weren’t going to try to hurt anyone else!” She pointed an accusing finger at him.
“No, no Belle you don’t understand,” he stuttered feebly.
What had happened to him?
Letting go of the display case, Rumple reached out a hand to her, but she took a step back, and he stumbled forward.
“I only did what I- what I thought was-” Rumple said and with each word he tumbled closer to the ground gasping for air and finally crumpling onto his side into a fetal position with a choking sound.
What is going on?
She had never seen him this fragile before and Belle was both perplexed and… worried. She knew she shouldn’t be, but she couldn’t help feeling worried for her husband, her lover, her true love. After everything he did to deceive her, she should just walk away, but her heart was pounding furiously in her chest, and she couldn’t make her feet move nor could she keep her eyes off of him.
He grunted like a wounded animal.
“Rumple!” Belle cried.
He didn’t say anything, just writhed on the hardwood floor.
Then, everything changed.
Before Belle consciously knew what she was doing, her body was down on the ground kneeling by his side and shaking his shoulders. What had been mere concern from her a second ago was now full-blown panic.
No, no, no our story CANNOT end this way!
“Rumple?!” she said louder, but he didn’t respond.
His eyes flickered shut, and he stopped breathing.
Belle sat on the floor next to Rumplestiltskin, continuing to shake his lifeless body and call his name.
After a few seconds he regained consciousness, gasping and lifting his head longingly up to hers.
With a great sigh of relief, Belle’s muscles unraveled a large knot she didn’t know was there.
“Hey,” she soothed him. She put an arm around his shoulder to support his body into a sitting position while he leaned into her to try to wrap his hand around her waist.
Failing to do so, he convulsed, and fell over with a groan. He was trembling.
“What’s happening?” asked Belle softly, hoping he was lucid enough to give her a coherent answer.
She had never seen Rumple this physically weak before, and it was startling to say the least. He had always seemed so...invincible. She leaned in closer, so she could hear anything he might try to say. Any ill will and bitter feelings she had harbored seemingly evaporated in the face of her soulmate struggling to breathe.
“It’s my heart,” wheezed Rumple. He continued to sway. He wouldn't even look Belle in the eyes and instead stared at the space between them. “The last human fleck of red…” he whispered and, taking another labored breath, “…is disappearing.”
Belle knew Rumplestiltskin was cursed by darkness. When he returned her heart to her, he had said he was losing all his humanity because of years of dark deeds. He had told her that if he kept hurting her there was certainly no hope for him as the dark hold on his heart would grow even more. Belle had thought he was speaking metaphorically at the time, as it was often hard to tell when he was being literal or figurative, but now she could see the physical toll the darkness had taken on him. If hurting her was destroying him, then perhaps helping Isaac to curse the heroes and force everyone into different roles was the final straw.
Belle’s eyebrows creased. “Your ability to love,” she realized sadly to which Rumple nodded. Belle sighed, her mouth hanging open as she struggled to process the change of events.
This new insight was both worrying and heartbreaking. Rumple had always struggled to be brave and to put love first. Even though he was quite the abhorrent creature when she had originally met him, she saw deep in his heart the ability to and need for love. She knew when he spared Robin Hood’s life that there was still hope, that there was indeed a good man trapped within a dark curse. It was her renewed faith in that tiny speck of pure goodness and love that kept her coming back.
But, what if that’s gone? What If there is no hope, no chance he could love and be loved? No, that can’t be right, not after everything he’s suffered. I will find a way to save him.
Rumple began to speak again, pausing every so often to breathe. “At least…in the end"— he finally met her eyes— “I got one last taste.” His lips twitched like they wanted to smile but couldn’t spare the energy. Instead, he blinked a few times.
Belle was on the verge of tears as she looked into his pained and blackening eyes.
He pulled her closer and whispered in a strained voice, “We were happy in there…we were in love.”
Belle wanted to scream but she couldn’t, not when he was finally being genuine with her. How could he be so dense? Did he miss the way she stared at him longingly when he put her heart back in her chest? It was always him.
Belle closed her eyes and smiled painfully. She leaned forward closer to Rumple and whispered back, “I was already in love.”
Rumple averted her gaze again and gasped what might be his last breath as he staggered back in shock like she had struck him hard across the face.
Belle found his eyes again and squeezed his shoulder. “Everything we had in the book,” she said, shaking her head, “you could have had here. You could have been a good man with a good marriage for real.” She paused a beat and looked at him with concern and bewilderment as she whispered, “Why wasn’t it good enough?”
It wasn’t rhetorical; she truly wanted to understand him. Perhaps the price of their love is he would never understand her, and she would never understand him.
Tears brimmed in Rumple’s eyes. “Because I didn’t believe it.”
Now it was Belle’s turn to feel wounded.
After everything we’ve been through, how could he lose faith in our love? True love’s kiss, nearly 30 years of separation, me losing my identity and being cursed as Lacey, Rumple nearly being killed by Cora, Rumple going off to Neverland and dying killing Pan, Rumple losing Baelfire finally and being enslaved to Zelena, getting married. After all that he couldn’t believe our love was true?
Belle was destroyed. How could they pick up the pieces if they had never been put together in the first place?
Rumple began to cry, losing all composure, his face twisted with a self-loathing expression. His chin quaked. “Who could ever love me?”
So, it wasn’t that he doubted his own feelings, he doubted that she could truly love him—that anyone, really, could love a beast. The Dark One was the most blatantly evil creature in all the realms, and he couldn’t wrap his head around her loving him. Maybe it didn’t make sense, but it was true love: their love, beautiful and fragile and chipped.
He reached a trembling hand up to her face to cup her cheek and brush his rough thumb across her cheek and lips.
Belle felt a warm feeling overcome her. She placed her free hand over his, keeping it in place.
“I knew what I was getting, Rumple.”
He needed to know that he didn’t need to protect her from himself. She was strong and capable, just as he was gentle and loving. She had been there at his best and worst moments, and she would be there for every other moment from now on if she could.
“I wasn’t going to pull back,” she added, and it was true. Had he been honest and open with her, Belle would have gladly faced the darkness with him together. Unfortunately, he had been too much of a coward to let her in, to let himself believe someone could actually love him.
“But I made you do just that.” Rumple shuddered and grimaced.
Belle didn’t know how to respond. He was right. He was finally seeing what was always there, but it was too late.
Rumple glanced back to the door of his shop nervously and made his final plea: “There’s a whole world out there, Belle, for you.” He nodded at her, urgency flaring in his eyes.
Doesn’t he get it? He is my world.
She removed her hand from his and raised it to hold his face instead, so they were gently supporting and caressing each other.
“Go with Will,” he insisted.
Without skipping a beat Belle shook her head, tears blurring her vision, and said, “I don’t love Will.” She reached out and held his cheek in her hand, stroking it gently. She took a deep breath, and Belle’s voice finally began to break, giving into despair when she said, “and, I am not letting you die.”
Rumple’s hand moved to caress her neck and pull her closer, and she shifted to oblige him.
Belle leaned in further, removing all the space between them and sniffling as they bowed their heads in a sad and desperate embrace.
Rumple was the first to pull away, sucking in a shallow breath as he did so. He turned with a shaky hand to pick up the discarded dagger from the floor. “Go, far away,” he told her, showing her the face of his dagger with the curly black letters etching his name and tying him to this damned curse. “When the man is gone…” he sniffed; Rumple held in his breath for all it was worth and dropped the dagger back to the ground like it had burned his skin. “…Only the Dark One remains.” He started to breathe heavily again like he had earlier. His whole body shook with the effort of talking to her.
“And that is more….” he groaned, spasmed, and gasped looking down. “…That’s more dangerous than…” he sniffed, beginning to sink, and Belle reached out to hold his hand in hers. His fingers were cold as ice. “…You could ever…” he choked, a sound that might have been the word “imagine,” and crumbled back to the floor, keeled over face first in pain.
Belle kneeled above him, rubbing his back in hopes of easing his pain.
“Rumple!”
He fell completely limp to the floor.
“Hey!” she said, and she flipped him onto his back.
Oh, no, this can’t be happening.
“Rumple!” she yelled, and she clutched at his emotionless face desperately trying to bring him back.
Please don’t do this.
“Hey! Hey!” She continued to shake his body, but it was no use. Even with the Dark Curse, in his final moments he had been selfless in his plea to save her.
Dark curse be damned. I am not letting him go out like this.
She stood up and paced back and forth in the shop, a hand massaging her temples as she tried to come up with ideas. The shop, of course! There must be something here that can help him.
She quickly marched to the back and pulled some large ancient texts and spell books off the shelf. She carried them stacked high in her arms back to the entrance where he lay on the floor. Belle dropped the heavy books down on the nearest display case. She needed to do some research, but she also couldn’t leave him alone.
Rumple whimpered on the ground. At least she knew he was still alive, she thought, as she flipped through the books.
“Shh, it’s going to be alright,” she told him softly. “Everything will be okay. Don’t worry.”
Rumple continued to moan and shake, and she wondered if she was really talking for his benefit or hers.
She pulled out the large brown book on the Dark One, A Aky Acaz Ca Kawo, with its strange and arcane markings. She had used it when Neal and she were sent back to the Enchanted Forest to revive Rumple. After everything that had happened that seemed like a lifetime away. She had dug up the book again when she reorganized the shop after she learned Rumple had reentered Storybrooke thinking it might come in handy. At this point she probably knew his shop better than him.
She blew the heavy layer of dust off of the thick pages. There was still an intricately carved hole in the middle of the book where the key to the Vault of the Dark One had been before Neal used it to revive his father. The language in the text was foreign, and she had not given it much thought when she was looking for the key in the Enchanted Forest, but now she translated it diligently.
“A long time ago the great sorcerer Merlin battled the Darkness. He forged a dagger in an effort to contain all the evil of the world. To prevent evil from razing all the land, Merlin used his powers, tethering all the dark power to one person who could be controlled: the Dark One.”
As if on cue, Rumple let out another groan, and Belle cringed.
“Shhh, you’ll be okay,” she soothed from above him. Although, even she didn't believe her words. Belle felt uneasy. “That’s it?” she said, pulling apart the pages and flipping them around hoping she had missed an important detail. “There has to be another way!”
Finally, she heard Rumple croak miserably, “there isn’t. Let me die, Belle. Save yourself.”
“Rumple, no!” Belle said, shaking her head vigorously, though she realized he probably couldn’t see the movement. “You’ve been through too much to have your happiness destroyed.”
He wriggled on the floor too weak to argue with her.
Rumple had passed out again, but believing he could still hear her, she kept talking. “I can’t destroy the darkness...but I might be able to pull it from you and contain it elsewhere to save your life until we can find Merlin. I’m no sorcerer, Rumple, but I was able to cast the protection spell you gave me over Storybrooke. Maybe I still have magic of my own,” she said finally, closing the book and rubbing her hands together.
I can still save him.
She stepped one leg over him and picked up his dagger from the ground. The dagger itself was vibrating violently, and even holding the hilt as she was, it felt as though it were biting into her skin and dipping darkness into her soul. Belle took a deep breath and crouched over Rumple’s comatose body.
Gripping the dagger tightly over his heart, she recited the incantation written in the book, “Purest evil, blackest bloom, darkness, too, can find its doom.”
Rumple’s eyes flashed open in apparent shock, and he clutched her arm with panic.
“No!”
“It’s okay. You’re safe now.” She smiled, and she touched her free hand to his face pushing back a strand of his damp hair. “I have always seen the man behind the beast, all right? But now? Now I see something else too,” she leaned in closer, so she could easily discern the familiar lines of his face. “A hero. And you, you just need to learn to see it too. I found a way to take the darkness out of you. Now it is your turn to take the darkness out of me. As a hero.”
“B-Belle! Belle! Please! No. Don’t do this,” he begged her through his tears. He pulled weakly at her sleeve but was unable to otherwise influence her, pinned to the ground by her body as he was.
“I love you,” she said.
Then, Belle was moving with lightning haste. She leaned in even closer, so she was straddling him to the hard floor. She could feel his short labored breaths tickle her lips now. She tightly cupped his face with her free hand trying to quickly memorize every detail of the moment; it might very well be the last time she see would him.
Then, she pressed her lips to his brusquely. For one powerful second she worked her lips passionately against his, willing herself to breathe warmth into his iciness.
She felt a large stirring and slithering come up from beneath her. When she lifted her lips from his, Rumple’s eyes fluttered shut, and then dark shadowy tendrils shot out from his heart and mouth arching his limp body.
It worked! I did it!
The dark tendrils surrounded her and circled her like vultures waiting for a meal. Then they found their mark and flew right into Belle’s chest, knocking her backwards off Rumple’s body, causing her to gasp, and raising her into the air.
The darkness snaked its way over her arms and legs and pulled them taut, testing and teasing her. They were like a tornado around her, pulling her up, covering every inch of her body, and dragging her away from him. Belle felt the immense suffocating pressure of the darkness pushing into her skin and weighing down her heart, but she held on tightly to the dagger. She wouldn't let it go. Belle raised the dagger above her head, and the darkness spiraled up her body reaching for it.
As the darkness overwhelmed her, she looked down to see Rumple and met his terrified gaze. He was paralyzed in fear on the ground with his mouth agape and his eyes wide open. The darkness was closing in on her vision when she saw the soft chocolate brown of his horrified eyes.
Then, there was nothing but darkness.
Belle and the Darkness disappeared from the shop, and the dagger she had been holding clattered to the ground revealing the words written on its face in curly black lettering:
Belle Gold