Disclaimer: I do not own OUAT (this stands for all chapter within 'Belle & The Angel').

The green smoke was all consuming. It filled the air, it filled her vision, and it filled her lungs until she could not breathe. She welcomed the breathlessness, for she had forgotten a time when it did not hurt to breathe. Hurt to be.

But her body betrayed her and fought for air, screamed for life. Her world, her opaque green world, was spinning now. Or maybe she was spinning. It only mattered that a great nothingness rushed towards her. Nothingness was all around her. Vertigo gripped her and claustrophobia invaded her mind. Helpless, trapped, her body screamed for air.

Falling...

Falling..

Falling.

It was never ending.

And just as she wished for death to end this hell... it did end.

She gasped; pulling in lung fulls of clean air. Her fingers clenching into wet earth, as she stared past tendrils of hair at dew drop covered grass. She stared at grass where there had been tarmac and remembered. Remembered.

She was back in her own personal hell and once again it hurt to breathe.

"Belle! Belle!" hands pulled her to her feet and she stated at the man trying to recall his name. "Are you alright?" a name sprang to mind but she knew it wasn't correct for that name was gone. Gone. Never to be whispered from her lips, never to precede the appearance of him.

"I... Your his... Bay... I'm sorry I meant Baelfire. I mean Neal. Yes I'm fine. I'm fine. Just fine." He wore rough, homespun clothes and she saw with surprise that she was wearing a golden dress. That golden dress. The thought flew into her head that the blue dress would have been better. He had created the blue dress.

Baelfire gave her a weak smile and pulled her around. They were in a field and not alone. That little group, who had stood and wept as a yellow Beatle drove away, now stood in the drizzling rain at the edge of a forest. She knew them all, even though certain names still danced out of reach. She watched as Baelfire moved across to help an old woman. She wanted to call them her friends but she knew that was a lie. Grumpy, yes his name was Grumpy, was the only person she had been building a friendship with. The others... well they had either not been around, crossing worlds with him, and the rest... well they had left her well enough alone. She'd presumed out for fear but perhaps they had other reasons...

"We're in the enchanted forest", Regina spoke and Belle noticed that they had all clustered into a group surrounding the Queen. Only she was left a little way apart.

Gods she was so alone.

She had grown up alone, she had spent over twenty-eight years alone, and she had been alone in waiting for... to come back to her. But this hurt so much more. Those moments, those rare and beautiful moments in her life when she hadn't been alone, had made her soft. Because this hurt. This hurt so much more than any torture she had been through. This hurt was almost unbearable.

The enchanted forest. Alone in this world. Surrounded by people and so alone. It hurt so much more in this world.

Her own patheticness almost brought a wry smile to her lips, but then she remembered the person who used to make her smile the most. She watched him meet her eyes and she heard his final words and she saw him disappear forever.

Her knees hit the damp ground, the pain in her chest intensified, her hands clenched into fists and she began to scream.

And I love you Belle

She screamed and screamed and screamed as she had never done in her life. Because this... a world without him... the Enchanted Forest without her Deal-Maker... this was incomprehensible. This made her heart burn as though it was on fire.

You made me stronger

But not strong enough. Why couldn't she have saved him? What could she have done? She screamed at her own uselessness, her own pointless existence. What had she done? Nothing. She tore at her hair, threw her body against the ground.

The pain of knowing he was dead. It hurt so much more, here, in this world.

Voices, hands, touched her, spoke to her but she threw them off. Fighting, clawing to keep them away. She didn't want to be touched. The idea repulsed her. She moaned into the earth; her throat burning, no longer able to scream. Each gasping breath sent fire shooting down into her lungs.

Raised voices were all around her; a background symphony to her own anger. Anger mingled with all encompassing despair. Hands went to touch her and every time she threw them off, crying and shrieking. It was too much. Too much to have anyone touch her. Too much to bear. To much to live alone without him.

Then a pair of strong arms encircled her from behind; she threw her elbow back and tried to twist. The man pushed her sideways. She flung her head back but only hit a shoulder. He had one arm trapped beneath her body holding tightly to one of her slender wrist. With his other hand he gripped her right, even as it went to claw at his face. A knee went into the backs of her thigh and his entire weight went onto her side pushing her into the dirt.

Her face pressed into the mud she sobbed helplessly. The fight went out of her limbs and the pain in her mind receded to her heart. That ever present pain that made it difficult to breath was still there but her mind began to clear. Truth-Spinner, Deal-Maker, lover, friend, his name didn't really matter. Names had always been so important to him but names weren't important to the dead. All that mattered was that he had been hers. He had found his courage and they had... Not enough time. Never enough time.

Sensing the fight leaving her exhausted limbs, the man's grip lessened, and once sure she wasn't about to fight back he pulled her up and into his chest. She clutched at his shirt, trying to control her hitched breathing and rasping sobs. The rain was falling heavier now drenching them to the skin.

"I know, I know", Baelfire's voice whispered in her hair as he ran a hand up and down her spin. "Gods Belle I know", his voice caught, "I thought I'd already come to terms with never seeing him again... but this... this hurts so much. And Emma, and Henry... I'm never going to see my father or my son again."

The pain is his voice, the very same that was in her heart, added another fracture to the splintering organ. She wrapped her arms around him and tried to hold him as tight as she possibly could. To show him she was there for him. To try and keep herself there, to try and keep the pain at bay, to try and prevent her mind from drifting away once more.

"Belle I can't tell you it'll get better. I... this... I don't think it can. But I'll be here with you, to help you, just please... don't leave me... don't let go."

Thanks for reading :)

I have an idea of where this story could go - if people would like to see that happen..?

Review/Favourite/Follow: those things tell me someone out there wants to read more.

Of course the concept of "The Angel" hasn't been introduced here so that would come up. And I would also like to clarify that this will remain a true RumBelle fic... because I do not believe that Rumpelstilskin is dead. Not at all. Take from that what you will.