Disclaimer: No infringement is intended. I don't own anything. Once Upon A Time and its characters are from ABC and their respectful owners.

Calling Myself

She did not look back.

Belle simply didn't.

Oh but it wasn't easy. Her heart was jerking out of her chest, way past brokenness, bleeding, in tandem with his forlorn pleading and his so very sad, heart-breaking, beautiful voice had her biting on her lip (copper (but not snapping and cutting words) filling her mouth) and either way she was choking in a whirlwind of soul-deep pain, simple and ignorant denial, bottomless hurt and the tiniest, small ounce of regret and guilt, so cutting and coarse that consumed her to the marrow of her bones and all because that voice from that man (beast!), beast that was really a man-in-ever-disguise with his milliards of secrets and lies, was the very same one (and too close in likeness) that had lilted I love you's a thousands of times, had said a hundredths of sweethearts and darlings and beautiful, and it had breathed uncountable Belle's that now it seemed as it the that voice (his) had brazen over her, marked her and now (ragged, jagged shards were breaking on her skin, crawling under her resolve, leaving her shallow) a broken shell of her name was all she could heard resounding around her (misshapen echoes and lonesome mirrors)—-and she flinched, for the reminder of the now-hollow vows and promises, of the broken deals and empty hearts, almost stepping over bump on the road in her hastiness to get away from the broken shell of her love.

He's not my love, she reminded fervently to herself—to the sky, to her soul, to her mind, to her body, to Storybrooke—to whomever heard her (before guilt and remorse swallows her whole). Not anymore.

Did he deserved her? No. Did she deserved better? Yes. Was her heart smeared to a tangled mass of irreparable pieces? Oh definitely. Was his?

Her ears squinted to the distant (but discernible) sounds of sobbing. (And she pushed aside the pang of instinctive and primal need to rush back to the doomed town's line (where he lost her in the lady revenge's ploy and where she now pushed him because of it, which meant losing her twice, so yes doomed and cursed like this forsaken land) and bring him back, to console him and piece him back together...only, she knew deep down, for everything, every piece of history, to spiral the same way, with the same end, and the same deceptions and them separated at each others ends.

"...yes." Belle whispered to the starless night. "At least of that, I'm sure." A bitter laugh was pushed from somewhere within her, she chuckled vehemently, tears escaping her grasp.

This time was no different.

But why was rejection, pain and desolation always the preludes of their tales?

The Beauty and the Beast….were they destined to be apart? Was this the price of his magic, of all the contradictions their love brought? A cloudless, bright spring clashing with fierce and merciless, and lonesome, winds of winter? Only it wasn't fate or magic keeping them apart...it was, solely, and utterly, them. One rejected, and the other retrieved back. One came back, and the other was cast aside for bigger ends. One left, and the other let go. One forgot, and lash out and the other became bitterly resigned and broken again. One had a destiny to fulfill, while the other could only farewell. One came back to be lost once again. One was found and at lost, whilst the other ran away. One was caged, controlled, trapped and the other was helpless to watch. One came back and the other received with wide, open arms….and from there uncertainty for integrity of history began.

And now we're back to the bitter start, Belle's face rejected, and the other retrieved back and One promised, and the other broke them.

She was no innocent just as he wasn't either. She ignored signs just as he ignored moral codes.

Mirror images, more alike than what they care to admit.

And this time he won't even had a chipped cup to remember and go by.

Sorrow unlike any other stumbled upon her full-force. Her breath hitched. And she couldn't help herself when a sob passed her lips, she halted inadequately on the middle of the road (vulnerable, but not as vulnerable and susceptible as she was to his pain, because his pain was hers, his tears were hers and had been since such a long time that habits die hard (like him, and powerless on a strange world would be nothing to him, a mere breeze, and he was safe) and especially these ones)

Both of them, they were splitting (a bail rose on her throat in only thinking of the blistering departs, long fights and goals and enemies surpassed all for nothing in the end) empty-handed.

Despite that, despite everything clashing on her heart and mind, Belle couldn't, wouldn't back down on this. This time it wasn't just her who was hurt (wiggled and spun on gold-coated lies, darkness hidden behind a double-edged smile and reassurance and a naive mind imbibing every single thing with generic trust) this time Rumpelstiltskin had amassed a grander price for his actions. People could have died on his dark schemes. People, it didn't matter if they were past avengers, past allies or past enemies, they could have been hurt nonetheless, some of them were already, and it had been happening since when; weeks? Months? Hadn't he, after all, been twirling people to his tune since before her birth and everyone's on town?

Belle sucked a sharp breath, an idea slamming so forcefully into the forefront of her mind that it left her gasping in disbelief at the sheer possibility. Try as she may, she couldn't stop the idea from been whispered in the darkest corners of her mind, the words echoing around her head, tainting her with such a sudden distrust and pain that she had to physically clasp her hands and cover her ears. Shame flooded her every sense; it hadn't been even minutes since she last saw him and spoke to him and bitterness was already clawing its way to her? The beauty balled her hands into tight fists, unwilling to follow that train of thought (or life). More pleas camefrom behind her now that she stopped walking, but she shook her head and remembered what was she thinking before. The awful, heartwrenching thought...

Was, heaven forbid, their marriage (watery eyes and crooked smile, tentatively asking) a mere task to be done and over with in his greater deed?

No. Belle shook her head feverishly, refusing to believe and declining and defying any rancor to consume the good times with him—because they were plenty of good times. Rumpelstiltskin had made her happy, no matter their end their middle was one of the best times of her life and she knew of his too. And that thought alone almost broke her. Still, she refused to back down and let herself belittle her persona with petty emotions. Just like in the Dark Castle when she'd first arrived she'd promised herself she wouldn't become a shadow of her persona. And she won't. She wouldn't. Because he couldn't have done anything remotely to that. Besideshe couldn't have—not like that. By that time he still had a heart, I know it. It was real, perhaps the only thing real ever since.

It had to be.

He wouldn't have make that, he couldn't be as cruel as to fool her into something so pure, a dream accomplished, a milestone reached and consumed by their love. No, not even a word-spinner and deal-maker could have feigned such stark emotions and bare-faced truths.

Then again, did everything that occurred later on, was a...lie?

Tears prickled her eyelashes instantly, some fell, others were stubbornly retained, she blinked them away but they came back in a rush of horrible despair.

Their primal reminiscent dance, their—her very first time with him, of him loving her to brim and her embracing him back wholeheartedly, their first (and many more) kisses as (finally) husband and wife, heartfelt confessions of hopes and desires for the upcoming future (a future she had foolishly thought back then would be free of such blinding darkness, not obliterated completely because she had always, always (despite what people assumed) known the black and deep grasp the Dark One's curse had on him (perhaps better than anybody else), partly from deducing and partly from listening to the bits of bits of his confessing of the every day struggle with the dark-shimmered silken-coated whispers on the back of his conscience—and despite that she had hoped with every ounce of herself that the Dark One's shadow would be dimmed to the point which would have allowed her free reign to reach across the bridge he himself had built centuries before and hauled him to a brighter shade of life. One she would have taught him to enjoy and rejoice together.)

How could hope wither away so fast? A paper kindled couldn't have run out of space to burn so fast, could it?

Yet in the end they were realities she had not faced (she had but forgiven) and this time he had assembled a bottomless hole from which he could not escape from. Her hands snaked, trembling and not-so-quite-steady, and wrapped around her arms, crumpling the coat's material, twisting it under her digits. Because she needed reassurance, plainly physical, that she was here, here and now, and he was there, there and gone (and she could still have him back) but in reality she knew he was dead to her—and he, the man she fell in love with and still loved wasn't that beast outside, lonely and left out across the line whose sobs resounded and pounded on her skull in a forever guilty, regretful song of wrapped-up lies, white-red blazed steels of anger and revenge, of giving backs and not trusting and pain and hurt and broken hearts—Rumpelstiltskin was dead to her.

That man was a beast. And beasts were better off in their own, planning and living and feeding off their beyond repair souls—and wasn't that what he wanted, her mind screamed, wasn't that what he truly cherished and longed for? To be the all-too powerful monster everything and everybody tagged him to be. Maybe he was, and she hadn't been able to see it for herself. Magic, a magical object of so very long ago, had to guide her and snapped up the veil from her rightful eyes. Was this the price of the magic of the True Love? All books, every literacy, every experienced she had lived throughout the last few years (of I don't want you anymore, dearie, I thought you had change!, You have to had courage to let me in, I don't want to see you ever again, Goodbye, Belle, I'll be waiting for you, I promise, You're not coming back, are you? He's gone, Yes, yes I'll marry you—I love you´) had taught her and proven painfully right how all magic comes with a price. Every actions requires an exact opposite response. From love to despair, from wishing to live forever to wishing to be asleep and never rise up again, from trust to distrust, from promise to betrayal, from giving knifes to grabbing them and stabbing, twisting and digging—

From everything to nothing, her mind chanted. Belle blinked, and took a death breath, this time her walk was wobblier but determined. She would not look back, she would not look back, she would not, she would not—

"Belle, sweetheart..."

She would not, she would not, she would not—

"I'm sorry! I was wrong, I was always wrong, I was stupid and oh gods I'm so sorry, dear..."

She would not—

"—I love you." he whispered. His wheeze was anything but loud or clear, in truth it sounded more akin to a mumble or mutter, but Belle didn't notice either when her eyes glazed over, just as her throat bobbed up and down and she nearly fell face-down on the ridiculously high heels when she missed a step. The words were soft and cracked, but she would recognized them anywhere, everywhere and anytime: thus was the curse of the True Love.

Nails—her nails—were digging and grasping her skin in a heart wrenching chance that she'd wake up from whatever, horrendous and despairing nightmare she found herself in. Although, a tiny, sneering voice whispered close to her ear and she tried to block it out but the more she pressed and pushed the more the despair pusher her on and she finally let go and heard the-

It's not, dearie.

I would relish in this.

Now, why would I do that?

I'm no man.

I can have it all.

-and knew this was what had to be done. She nibbled her lip between her teeth and bit, hard and she didn't let go, blood slurred between her teeth and the copper feeling swirled on the roof of her mouth, suddenly she felt every ounce of exhaustion the physical effort of shutting the hell up her mouth and to not say anything to him. To that—that man out there, and she reasoned on her mind over and over again that he wasn't the man she loved, the man she had thrived to marry and settle down with, wishing and hoping beyond reason (and truth, and secrets, and shaking, disapproving and pitying faces) to have a family someday...with him. But he wasn't—the man she was leaving behind was the man who lied and the man who chose.

And well, she had chosen too that night. Since Rumpelstiltskin was so keen in fighting for himself and that miserable power—oh and she knew better than anyone else he would—then she was going to chose also, and she chose herself. Her happiness. Calling herself brave meant she had to be. She certainly didn't need nobody else, she could very well bid herself, and work for herself and be happy for herself—

alone.

Belle shuddered a breath out, her eyes falling closed. "Not here, not now." she rasped out through a constricted throat. Because she wasn't about to break down, not so close to him.

Besides, if she did, she might crumple to dust for once and all.

Crisp blows of wind wiped her face, and goosebumps prickled suddenly around every exposed area of her body. Despite every single cell, nerve and muscle in her body that said otherwise—she didn't turn around, not even to see his face one last time. Not even once because she knew—she knew that once she saw his face twisted into a hard grimace, tears falling from his dark-liquid mesmerizing eyes accompanied with his voice that was downright begging and pleading by this point—she would give in. Even do he believed her to be the brave one, she didn't have so much strenght as to watch him go, or worse, to see his face laced into a well-known snarl of hatred.

Having heard his (now) hoarse, cracking voice so very despaired was more than enough for a lifetime and beyond.

Right now, all she wanted was a dreamless slumber to fall into.

Maybe, they would grant her that wish at the very least.

Maybe.

"Goodbye, Rumpelstiltskin." she whispered, her voice catching.