A/N: Yes, I am still working on Interfector/Interfectrix. But I have so many characters running around in my head that sometimes they'll meet if they will or no—and this one wouldn't leave me alone.
Set during some strange AU where Storybrooke is cursed but Belle is out and about with memories intact, and Buffy never really got over Angel but is somehow in Maine.
Yeah, don't ask.
On Loving a Monster
"So, you're married to Mr Gold?" Buffy asked, eyes wide.
Belle blushed. "Well, yes." She looked down at where her hands were folded atop a table in Granny's diner. "It's hard, sometimes. Everyone's scared of him. Nobody can understand how I could love him…how I could love…well, a monster."
"Yeah, I get that," Buffy sighed. "Wait, aren't you two Beauty and the Beast, according to Henry's weird fairy-tale theory?"
Belle nodded.
Buffy smiled sadly. "Well, at least when you kiss him and break his curse, he's happy about it."
"Oh not even," Belle objected. "You haven't read Henry's version, huh?"
"No, why?"
"Because in that version, the Beast chose his curse, his power, to protect those dear to him. But True Love's Kiss will break any curse, make him an ordinary man again," Belle explained. "An ageing spinner with a wounded leg and a lost son. Of course, Beauty didn't care…but he did."
"Wow," Buffy said, impressed despite herself. "That's a different take on things."
"You have no idea," Belle groaned. "But it doesn't matter that Rowan's not some all-powerful imp with his magic at stake. He's still a monster in the eyes of everyone here. And in his own eyes. He thinks he's a monster, so sometimes…sometimes he acts like it. And that's hard, too; living with that. But I do. I do."
"Because he's the most important person there is," Buffy said softly. "Because no matter what people say, or think, you know there's something beneath the mask that scares them all away. You love him even though he's a monster. You love him because he's a monster, sometimes. And even when he does something so, so terrible that you should hate him—that you want to hate him—you can't. Because you love him, always and forever."
Belle looked at her with understanding. "Speaking from experience, are you, dearie?" She put an odd lilt on the last word, rolling the 'r' and making the two syllables rhyme.
Buffy, recognising Belle's husband's accent, laughed despite the inexplicable seriousness of the conversation. "You could say that."
Belle smiled. "So what was the curse on your knight in shining armour?"
Buffy paused a moment, trying to imagine either Mr Gold or Angel in armour of any sort, shining or otherwise, and failing. "Well, as long as we're talking fairy-tales," she said, "let me tell you a story."
And she did, not quite knowing where the words came from, but remembering that there was a certain sound these stories had.
"Once upon a time, there was a girl in love with a vampire. This vampire was cursed to be alone and mournful all his days, and he suffered greatly, but it was this curse which gave him his soul and it must never, ever be broken…
"And then one day, it was."
I don't know why this struck me so hard, it just did. I don't have any intention of continuing this—I mean, honestly, how would I?—but I thought it was rather sweet as it is.