All through the journey back they were silently asking themselves many things.
Among them- Belle.
How tell Belle...
And finally Storybrooke, and the haven, and a slim girl in a bright blue coat, confident and happy, hugging herself as if it were the only measure to keep herself from flying clean up into the air.
Somehow the others fell off, kept behind, and Neal found himself alone - staring in the sparkling, overjoyous eyes. Feeling her hands on his neck, feeling the kiss she gives him, hearing her laughter. Feeling her hands release him, seeing her eyes look behind his shoulder, her face alight with expectation, the lips trembling with - his father`s name.
He can`t.
"Belle,"
His voice is gone.
Belle takes a tiny step back, her eyes still confident, her smile still brave.
"He is ..."
"He is back," she interrupts him and now again she is smiling, smiling at his absurd words, at what he is trying to say, because she knows already what he will say next, and he should not say it, not because the pain would be much more than she will ever learn how to bear, but because he is wrong. She knows, she is certain - Bae is wrong. He has to be.
"Belle, he is - is not back."
She shakes her head, shakes his words away - it is so simple just to keep looking at the ship, just to keep waiting...
"He... he stayed behind. Had to. Belle... there was no choice."
He is spent, but the Charmings are stepping up now. And Mary Margaret is trying to embrace Belle, and David is speaking to her, trying to - what?
Belle steps away from Mary Margaret, quietly, very quietly looks at him, at David, Emme, Hook.
" He could not," she states. " He promised."
" Belle, he... there was no choice, " he says again. And hears David seconding him with " No other way".
" No other way? Why?" her eyes are searching theie faces, they are no longer sparkling, now they are burning with the most intense of all pains- the calm, desperate, collected one. " Because there WAS no other way or because you did not think him worth the trouble of finding one?"
"Belle," this time from Mary Margaret- softly, helplessly. " We are so sorry..."
"No," the voice is tremblingly dry, " No, you are not. Why should you be? So you had no choice, " she repeats musingly and they can hear the mounting hysteria in her tone, see the trembling of her body.
" I see. I also see that probably he deserved it, did not he? Especially from you," she throws at Neal and he looks back at her, because it is probably true.
Bella swallows. Takes another step back. And another.
And blindly rushes away.
And it takes Ruby to find her - and no one else dares approach her, once she is found.
So, now Belle is told, he thinks stonily.
So now it is ok, move on, you know, thanks, Papa, that will be all...
And he feels no pain.
Almost.
TBC