A/N: We made Belle a few years younger in this story than she is in the show, for reasons that will be obvious when you read it.

Prologue

"Take her to the tower," the Evil Queen commanded dispassionately. She waved a single guard forward; the girl was a tiny little thing, and the only armament she had was a single thick book. Capturing her certainly wasn't going to be much of a challenge, even for one man.

"What? No! What are you doing?" the little beauty cried, her voice tinged with such desperation she was practically sobbing. "I can save him, j-just let me go to him…I can break his curse!"

This was getting tiresome. "You already tried and failed. That monster's beyond saving." Regina had known Rumplestiltskin for a long time; far longer than this little bimbo. In all those years, the only emotions she'd ever known him to show were disgust, sick glee, and the occasional bout of rage. And even those were probably just an act to intimidate people most of the time. Basing this entire plot around the premise that the old reptile was capable not only of love, but of True Love, had been a long shot, but it had seemed too good of an opportunity not to at least give it a try.

The guard shoved the girl into the cage they'd brought along and barred the door behind her. Belle shot a death glare at her through the bars. Regina just smiled bemusedly. "I'm sparing you a lifetime of pain and misery. Someday you might even thank me." This girl was young, clearly naïve, and based on the comments she'd made as they'd walked together on the road, the debacle with the Dark One was her first real experience with love. She didn't realize what she'd gotten herself into; not truly. For a brief moment, some long-hidden part of Regina almost pitied her. It was an unpleasant feeling, so she cantered her horse around and tried to focus on the road.

"You can't keep us apart forever!" the girl persisted, determined not to be shut out. There was a heavy clank as she threw herself against the bars. "I'll fight for him!" she ranted. "I'll never stop fighting for him!"

Memories tugged at the corners of the Evil Queen's mind. A smiling youth with brown eyes and windswept hair, a tarnished piece of tack on her ring finger, a cold, stiff body on a dirty stable floor, and a revenge that would endure as long as the memories did. She reined in her mount, turning to give her captive an inscrutable look. "No, I don't suppose you will, will you?" She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Well, we'll have to see what can be done about that, won't we?"

"You promised me a story," Belle reminded her master—or perhaps she should say her former master—playfully, perching on the edge of his spinning wheel.

He blinked owlishly, clearly as lost in all of this as she'd been before the woman on the road had finally helped her put a name to what she felt for him. "Did I?"

"Mm hm." She plucked the thread he'd been working with from his fingers and set it aside. "Tell me about your son."

He ducked his head and averted his eyes, looking smaller and more vulnerable than she'd ever seen anyone, much less the Dark One, look. It was adorable. She repressed the urge to tell him so. He'd never forgive her. "I…lost him. There's nothing more to tell really," he said sheepishly.

"And since then, you've loved no one, and no one has loved you?" Gods, how long had he been alone in this huge, dark, desolate house with only those hideous puppets for company? How close had she come to leaving him that way all over again? Her heart tightened. She'd made the right choice by coming back.

He leaned in close to her, staring intently, but very pointedly not touching, as though he was afraid he might scare her off if he made any sudden moves. "Why did you come back?" he whispered incredulously.

"I—" She hesitated. This was the moment of truth. What she said next could change the course of both of their lives. "I wasn't going to, but…" Her own words ran through her mind, giving her strength. Do the brave thing and bravery will follow. She smiled helplessly. "I love you."

"Yes." A breath that she hadn't realized he was holding escaped him in a rush, half a sigh, half a laugh. "Yes, and I love you, too," he said with a smile of his own, displaying his stained teeth unselfconsciously. He brought a clawed hand up to cradle her cheek, stroking her cheekbone gently with his thumb.

Belle leaned in to claim her long-awaited kiss and Rumplestiltskin, matching her eagerness, met her halfway. They were both grinning so widely that the kiss was more teeth than lips, but their hearts were in it and that was all that mattered. Almost of their own accord, her hands found their way to his shoulders and her eyelids slipped blissfully shut. As the kiss went on, a warm white light washed over the lovers and a gentle breeze ruffled their hair.

She opened her eyes and found herself face to face with a man who was both familiar and utterly unfamiliar. His face had lost its rough, shimmery texture, but the crooked nose and sharp cheekbones were right where they belonged. He ran his hands over his face, feeling the changes for himself. They were as long and spindly as ever, but the black claws had given way to an unremarkable set of pink fingernails. His eyes, now a warm shade of brown rather than that strange, otherworldly yellow-black, searched hers, clearly perplexed. "Belle? I…don't understand. What's happened to me?"

Tears welled up in her eyes. It was too much. Knowing that he returned her love, and watching the power of that love undo some of the most powerful magic of all time... "True Love's Kiss will break any curse."

"True Love's Kiss," he repeated dumbly, staring in awe from her smiling face to his smooth pink hands. "I-I still don't understand entirely, Belle." His own smile returned, with just a hint of his old wickedness in it. "But you can explain everything in detail later. Right now, I think we have more important things to do. Don't you agree?" He scooped her into his arms like a bride and spirited her up the stairs as she giggled her assent.

Just as their lips made contact, Belle started awake with a gasp, her face streaked with cold tears. She was covered in gooseflesh. Her only blanket had somehow become wadded into a bundle during the night, and she was clutching it in her arms like a lover. Sighing, she straightened it out and wrapped herself up. Maybe if she could get warm enough, she could get back to sleep and pick up her dream where it had left off. She curled up on the narrow bed, tucking her pillow under her head.

The bed itself wasn't uncomfortable. Actually, compared to the dungeon where Rumplestiltskin had kept her when she'd first gone to live with him, the tower cell where Regina had stowed her away upon their arrival last night was downright luxurious. It must be where she kept her highborn prisoners. Magical flames, unfed by any kind of fuel, burned in brackets along the wall, providing her with warmth and light. For sleeping, she had an actual bed with a wooden frame and a clean mattress, rather than a heap of dirty straw. And a single lacy satin pillow, of course. Unsure whether she should laugh or cry at the memory, she finally settled on a weary sigh.

There was even a window to let in in the pale morning sunlight. There were no bars on it, just ordinary wooden shutters. One look outside had explained why. It was so high off the ground that any attempt to jump or climb to freedom would have meant certain death. Though she'd only seen it from the inside, it had to be the highest structure she'd ever seen, higher than even the tallest battlements of her father's mountaintop castle. She could look down on the roof of the Queen's palace, across the courtyard, and the gatehouse and barracks looked like children's toys.

The window was the only opening the cell had. There was no door. The Queen had teleported her here with an indolent snap of her fingers and a haze of purple smoke. How were they planning to interrogate her, or exchange her, or sacrifice her to their god, or whatever the hell they had brought her here for? How were they planning feed her? Were they planning to feed her? The Queen had gone to an awful lot of trouble simply to leave her for dead.

The journey here had been an unpleasant one. She'd been bounced around her empty cage like butter in a churn, and had more than a few aches and bruises to show from the experience. The only human companionship she'd had had been the occasional leer or lewd comment from her guards. Thankfully they hadn't dared to go any farther than that, fearful of damaging the Queen's merchandise, no doubt. She'd contemplated running the few times they'd let her out to wash or relieve herself, but so far from home, with no idea which direction she should even be running in, she had a feeling she wouldn't be getting very far. They had kept her gagged, so she hadn't been able to call on Rumplestiltskin. Would he have answered, given the mood he'd been in when she'd left him? Maybe she was better off not knowing.

After what seemed like months, but was probably a few weeks, they had finally arrived at a landmark she'd recognized. The Dark Palace. Belle's heart had sunk in her chest. Until then, she'd been able to hope that they were destined for the Dark Castle. That the queen's plan had been to ransom her back to Rumplestiltskin in exchange for some spell or trinket. But the moment she saw the unmistakable shape of the palace, looming ahead of them like a stack of enormous blades, she'd known she was in this for the long haul.

She kicked off her blankets, exasperated. Returning to her dream didn't seem to be happening, and in any case, certainly wasn't going to help. She needed to find a way out of here. Now that she was rested and had the daylight on her side, maybe she'd be able to see something she had missed last night.

The floor looked to be made out of a single enormous slab of solid white stone, with no bricks or tiles. If there was a trapdoor concealed under it somewhere, it had been hidden well. The floor was dominated by an enormous inked rune bigger than she was. Belle frowned, studying the marking thoughtfully. At the Dark Castle, back before she'd found herself in possession of a library, she'd read through a few of the dry old spellbooks her master had left lying around, for lack of anything more interesting. One of them had been a primer on arcane symbols. Three quarters of it had been completely unintelligible, but the symbol before her was one of the few that she had been able to figure out. A rune of warding.

"You've found my surprise!" The Queen's voice rang out behind her, full of false cheer. Belle turned to find the woman perched on the end of her bed. She was, as always, impeccably dressed in a heavy black velvet gown with lace trim, her hair piled on her head without a single strand out of place. However, if Belle looked closely, she could see that the woman's eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and her face looked drawn, as if she hadn't had any sleep. What had she been doing last night that was more important? Whatever it was, judging by the smirk on her face, it didn't bode well for Belle. "Then I suppose it won't be necessary for me to tell you that no one will be coming to your rescue, and that your only hope is to cooperate with me?"

Belle held her gaze stubbornly. She was so tired of being pushed around by people who were bigger and stronger than her. An overbearing father, an unsolicited fiancé, horde of ogres, a paranoid fool. A pair of idiots who tried to throw her down a well! If this woman thought Belle was going to fall apart simply because she bullied her, she was in for a rude awakening. "Do you really think a few scribbles are going to stop him?" she asked softly.

The Queen's smirk faltered a bit, but didn't fade. "Well, I don't see him here. Either they're doing their job or he simply decided you weren't worth the trouble."

Belle wasn't going to fall for that, either. She'd seen the power of their love work magic against Rumplestiltskin's curse, and unlike certain cowards who would remain nameless, she couldn't ignore something she'd witnessed with her own two eyes. Even that stupid rampage he'd gone on after he'd convinced himself she'd betrayed him was proof against Regina's words. Whatever the man felt for her, it definitely wasn't apathy. "He'll come for me. He loves me, and even if he didn't, he'd do it just to spite you."

That drove the last traces of humor from the Queen's face. "I came up here to see if I could reason with you, but clearly that's a lost cause. Poor dear. He really does have you brainwashed, doesn't he?" She snorted. "Well, since it looks like you're going to be here a while, I suppose I should see about getting you something to eat. You're no good to me dead." She waved a hand, summoning a tray bearing a simple meal of tea and porridge to Belle's bedside.

Belle eyed the tray skeptically. Her instincts rebelled at the thought of ingesting anything this awful woman put before her. Her brain scolded them. She was hungry and thirsty, and if the Queen wanted her dead, she didn't have to be subtle about it. She took a seat near the head of the bed, as far from the Queen as she could get, keeping the tray between them as if it were a barrier. "Then what am I good to you for?" Belle knew she couldn't trust a word out of the woman's mouth, but if she could get her talking, maybe the Queen would let some useful clue slip. "Why did you bring me here?" She reached for her teacup. Trying to give the impression that she was listening less intently than she was, she lifted it to her lips for a casual sip.

And then her world went black.