As always, Once Upon a Time belongs to Adam, Eddy, and ABC.

Still Fighting

Belle rubbed her eyes as the words swam before her on the page. She turned up the light on the desk, but it didn't help.

'I reckon it's time for bed, lass.'

She looked at Will as he sat across from her, his feet propped up on the table.

'Feet off the table, please, Will,' she entreated tiredly: 'I don't know how many times I've told you.'

'Sorry,' he said, removing his feet. He sighed and took a swig out of the flask he kept in the inside pocket of his jacket.

'You work too hard,' he commented then.

'We have to find the Author,' she insisted: 'it's important.'

Ever since Henry had told her about the book and the Author, and the so-called villains never being allowed to have a happy ending, she'd wanted to help find the Author. The idea that someone could be interfering in people's lives and preventing them from being happy disturbed her. Regina had done terrible things, yes: she'd even done them to Belle, but, as she'd told Henry, she was on a much better path now. Regina was trying to change her life, and it wasn't right for some shadowy entity to keep her from being happy.

Her interest in the Author was cemented when she met Will in the library and understood that their stories were similar: they both loved someone their respective stories called a villain. He'd used the front door this time, so she hadn't had to call Emma. He was sitting at one of the tables, poring over the copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that he'd stolen previously. Actually, he was looking at one page in particular: the page with the picture of the Red Queen on it.

'Do you know her?' she asked.

He looked up abruptly.

'Sorry: what?'

'It's just that people come in here sometimes to look at the story books to find people they know. You've been looking at that picture for a while: I just wondered if you knew her.'

He nodded. 'Aye, I do: she's my wife.'

'What's her name?'

'Anastasia.'

'Where is she now?'

'Still in Wonderland: I'd been brought here with the first curse, so when it was recast, she and I were separated again. I'm trying to find a way back to her.'

'I see.'

'It just seems that every time we have a little happiness, it gets taken away.'

Belle sighed. 'I know how you feel.'

'Sorry, lass: you've probably got better things to be doing than listening to a drunken fool prattling on.'

'No, it's alright. I need the distraction, to be honest.'

He looked at her. 'Yeah, I reckon you do. Seems you and me are in the same boat: separated from the ones we love.'

Belle blinked: it seemed everyone in town knew about her and Rumple.

'I'd rather not talk about my situation, if you don't mind,' she said quietly, looking away.

'Fair enough,' he said genially.

He left shortly after that and Belle tried to go about her business, as she tried to do every day, but Rumplestiltskin was never far from her thoughts.

She had thought this would get easier, but it seemed to be getting harder. She just couldn't sort through her emotions. One moment, she was on the verge of leaving everything behind to search for him because the love and longing for him was so great, while the next, she was telling herself that she'd done the right thing in making him leave, because he was dangerous, and who knew where he would stop in his quest for power? She told herself repeatedly that she'd banished him in order to keep the town safe, but when she remembered his plea, the words he'd said – I'm afraid! – her knees nearly gave out and she couldn't hold back her sobs, and the guilt ate away at her.

Her thoughts were so muddled. She loved him more than anything, but she didn't know if what she loved had ever even been real, and when that thought came, so did the anger. He'd lied to her! He'd said he trusted her, but it had all been a lie. But was it all a lie? She asked herself that often, and then she remembered that the gauntlet had led her to the dagger, and he'd told her himself that the gauntlet led to the thing a person loved the most. There could be no doubt that power was his True Love, but, even knowing that, she could not just stop loving him: she would never be able to do that. He was her True Love, even if she had never really been his.

Still, all those moments, all those smiles and touches and kisses: had they really meant nothing to him? If she believed what the gauntlet had shown her, then, no: that had all been an illusion, something she desperately wanted to believe in, so she'd made more of it than it had been. On the evidence of the gauntlet, she would have to believe that she'd been no more than a distraction in Rumple's quest for power, but every time she tried to make herself believe that, her heart rebelled.

Even after all she'd seen, all she'd discovered – and Hook had filled her in on his plan – her heart still clung to the belief that what she and Rumple had shared had been real. No, it wasn't just her heart: it was her soul too. Even though the evidence and testimony had shown her truth, her heart and soul clung to their own truth, which was that Rumple, as badly as he'd treated her, as abominably as he'd behaved, did love her as she loved him.

The thoughts and feelings chased themselves around and around in her head, and Belle, who'd always known what was right, no longer did, and she hated it.

This was another reason why she offered her help in finding the Author. Aside from feeling the injustice of people not being able to decide their own fate, Belle simply needed a distraction from her pain, and just maybe if she helped with this, she would find answers to her own troubled feelings too.

She went up to Will one day in the diner and told him about the Author and that she thought they could ask him to reunite him with his wife.

He stared at her, eyes wide.

'You'd do that for me?'

'Yes,' she said.

'But why? You don't know me from Adam.'

'I know, but…' She looked away, blinking. 'I need to know that happy endings are possible even when things seem like they can never be good again, and I think if I help you, it might help me too.'

He smiled at her.

So, they became friends. It seemed unlikely, but they got along well enough. He told her stories about Wonderland and his friend Alice, and about Robin and the Merry Men, and he kept her company when she worked late at the shop or the library. She was particularly grateful for him keeping her company at the shop: she didn't like to be alone here with her memories. This place held so much of Rumple: it still smelled like him, and sometimes she swore she heard his voice, felt his touch, his kiss. She couldn't be alone here without breaking down, so she didn't come here now without Will for company.

She sighed now and closed her book.

'Taking my advice?' he asked.

'Yes,' she said: 'I can't see to read any more, so I think that means it's time to rest.'

'I know why you do this, you know: why you work yourself so hard.'

'Will…'

'You see him when you close your eyes, don't you? I see Ana too.'

She sighed and blinked back tears.

'I don't just see him: I hear him too, begging me, telling me he doesn't want to lose me, telling me he's afraid. I feel so guilty: I…' She trailed off helplessly.

Will straightened up and leaned across the table to talk to her.

'Would you do the same thing if all that happened right now?' he asked.

'I don't know.'

'What does your gut tell you?'

She sniffled. 'I feel that, in the same circumstances, I'd make the same decision. What he was doing was…horrible. I never thought he'd crush a heart again, and he said he would enjoy it: that wasn't the man I thought I knew. He was dangerous: he was out of control. I sent him away because I thought he would stop at nothing for power and I didn't know how many people he would hurt to get it, but I still love him, and I feel horrible for doing that to him, and part of me doesn't believe he could do such things again, even though I saw it with my own eyes.'

'Well, if you still love him, maybe you can sort all this out,' he suggested.

'But I don't know where he is. I told him to leave and the magic around the town won't let him come back. I feel so sick because…because I said I would never stop fighting for him and I stopped: I stopped fighting for him.' She sniffled again, tears streaming down her face. 'I fought: I did, but he… Somewhere along the way, my fighting wasn't enough any more. He betrayed me: he lied to me, and that means that I wasn't important enough to him for him to be honest with me. I had to stop fighting, because I lost myself fighting for him, and it wasn't enough. He swallowed me up, and I just couldn't do it any more.'

'Well, it seems to me that looking for the Author is you still fighting for him, fighting for your happy ending together.'

She sighed. 'Maybe, or maybe it's a fool's errand. I don't know if all of this is the Author's doing or if it's just Rumple's, but if there's even a chance that this isn't just his doing, I have to get to the bottom of it: I have to find out why someone would do that to him when he's already been through so much. At least if I knew one way or the other, if the Author interfered or if it's all Rumple, I could see my way forward more clearly.'

She sighed again. That had helped: talking a little. Her mind was clearer and she had some idea of her feelings. She still loved Rumple, and always would, and maybe she'd stopped fighting for a while: maybe the horror of what he was doing and her hurt at his betrayal had made her see only the negative. She'd needed time to figure out what she wanted and where she was going. She was still upset with him, and still hurt, but she knew what to do now: she was going to find the Author, figure out what his involvement in all of this was, and then find Rumple and see where they could go from here.

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