So, no new episodes of Once and my mind kind of wanders. I got this crazy little idea and decided to give it a try. Tell me what you think.
"Hey, did you hear Snow's announcement at all? I didn't see you at dinner tonight." Belle asked as she saw Neal entering the common room that was located between their two separate rooms on Snow and Charming's Castle.
"I was helping the dwarfs with the fortification, we are almost finished with the north wall." Neal answered, taking off his cape. "I snatched some bread from the kitchen. What was the announcement about?"
"They are expecting a baby." Belle said, a little smile on her face.
Neal froze on place. Back in Neverland, Snow had said she wanted another child. But that was before body swappings and Pan's curse. He wondered how Emma would fell about that, how she would feel if she was there.
He tried to smile, for Belle's sake.
"Wow, that is great. I will congratulate them later."
"Neal, you don't need to pretend to be happy. The whole situation is awkward, but it is not like they planned it like this. They are not trying to replace Emma, you know?"
"No, of course not." he said, sitting by her side on the couch. Their relationship had grown close on the last months in a surprisingly natural way. They took care of each other, and they were there for each other in the hardest moments. And, even if Belle was technically younger than Neal, he discovered she had all the authority to act like a real stepmother to him sometimes.
He looked at her, finally smiling.
"That makes two of you, huh? That is good, my little brother or sister will have someone to play with." Belle's pregnancy was a surprise to her, and just another moment were Neal had been there for her. It was still a touchy subject and they hadn't told anyone else yet, but Neal was trying to bright her mood about that.
"Actually, three." Belle said, remembering Aurora, her expanded belly showing everybody what Snow's and Belle's weren't showing yet. "Oh my, the three of us!"
"You can open a mother-to-be club. Knit socks and things like that." Neal said, not looking at her, so he didn't see the wonder and surprise on her expression.
"Is there anyone else who announced a pregnancy?"
"Not that I am aware of, unless Regina is hiding the game. She does have been spending a lot of time with Hood." Neal said, finally looking at his stepmother. "What are you thinking about?"
"I don't know, I remembered something, but it may be just a coincidence."
"Belle, you knew my father pretty well to learn that what he said is true. There is no such thing as coincidences. What are you thinking about?"
"There was this prophecy... but it talked about four kids, not three."
"Which prophecy?"
To Neal's surprise, Belle looked down, sheepishly.
"While I was living with your father on the Dark Castle, I overheard some things... talks he had, with others and with himself."
Neal nodded, an expression on his face that translated, he hoped, as `I am not judging you`.
"I saw him having this kind of premonition twice, but I don't think he knew about that. His body would go still and he would whisper weird words, that gave me the chills. That's why I remember clearly about this one, the one about four kids."
"How did it go?"
"It talked about four kids, born from four different mothers but around the same time. They would be born during hard times and once united, they would help to open the path to a new, more peaceful era."
"Four kids. Is there anything else you remember?"
"I am not sure I remember the whole thing. But there was a little piece that didn't make sense until now." Belle said, realization filling her face. "They would be the sons of hope and the daughters of light and darkness."
Neal stared at her, his forehead wrinkled in thinking. But Belle had been thinking about that for way longer than he had.
"Aurora and Snow would be the hope. Aurora, that was left on this bare land but found her way back to her Prince that, she thought, was lost forever. And Snow, that almost didn't come home with David because of the dreamshade. After everything they went through, they still have the hope of a better future."
Neal nodded, thinking that made sense.
"Then we have left..."
"The daughters of light and darkness." Belle said, lightly touching her belly. "This one is, for sure, the daughter of darkness."
"But who would be the daughter of light?"
Belle looked up at him, and Neal couldn't understand the stare that carried something close to compassion, directed to him.
"I have a guess, but you need to tell me if it is possible."
Neal felt his stomach drop. What now?
"Do you remember how the first curse was crafted, Neal?" she asked, reaching his hand to touch it. "It was planned by the Dark One, who knew the Savior would break it. But he didn't know what would lead the Savior to break it."
"It was Henry." Neal said in a whisper, the aching on his chest growing as he remembered his son.
"Yes, Henry. The product of the union between the Savior and the Son of the Dark One. Light and Dark."
"Would Henry be the fourth kid?"
"No." Belle said, pressing his hand in hers. "Henry already has his own destiny as the True Believer. I am talking about another kid, that would be born in the next year. Another kid from the Savior."
Neal finally understood were Belle was going with her thinking. She was showing a knowledge about magic that impressed him, and he was afraid she was right.
"I am sorry to ask this, Baelfire." she said, so caught up in the moment that she ended up calling him by the name she originally knew him by. "Do you know if that would be possible? If Emma... saw someone on the last months before we parted ways?"
Neal dropped his head, letting go of Belle's hand to sustain his head. She put a hand on his back instead, seeing the pain on his expressions.
"Was it Hook? I didn't..."
"No, it is not that!" Neal interrupted her, not wanting to have any mental images. "Emma was not with anyone like this, not since Pan got Henry."
"Then I may be mista..."
"It was before." Neal said, his head still down. "It was before all this Neverland crap, when we were still in Storybrooke, when Greg and Tamara were still around."
Belle waited. She felt like there were old unsolved issues on that, and, if Neal didn't want to talk about it, she wouldn't push him to. Even if she really wanted to know if her theory was right. But he kept talking.
"It was one night, and it was wrong, since technically I was still with Tamara, even if she was fooling me. Man, an honorable person wouldn't do that, and I know it. I had this little fight with Tamara because I was beginning to buy what Emma was feeding me, so she got angry with me and threatened to leave, and I was miserable, and Emma showed up wanting to talk about the past..."
His words came out in a rush, and Belle began to make small circles on his back with her hand. He was trying to justify himself.
"It was hard to deal with my dad, or the fact I had a kid I didn't know until then, or that Emma was back and I still loved her, it was all too much. So I asked her... I asked her if we could forget everything for a little while, and just... just be ourselves, you know? No Savior or Son of the Dark One, just Neal and Emma, the two idiots that stole cars and had fun with each other."
"We did that, we shared old stories and a bottle of Jack, and we laughed until our bellies hurt, and we teased each other. I just wanted to be silly with her again, be young, with not a fuck in the world. But at some point things went farther, and none of us tried to stop it. But we did try to forget on the next day. We never discussed it since then."
He was silent now and Belle was still trying to soothe him. For a moment she forgot about her theory or anything else, focusing on the man that looked, more than ever, like a lost boy.
"I am not judging you, and I think you shouldn't either. I think you knew, deep in your heart, that Tamara meant nothing."
"I felt so bad afterwards. I cheated on my fiancee."
"Things happen for a reason." Belle said.
"Yeah, and this makes me angry, you know? It looks like all the moves in my life are planned and I am nothing but a pawn. A pawn to whom happiness is not allowed."
"That is not true, sweetheart." Belle said in a soft voice. "Maybe there are prophecies and predetermined destiny, but the way you lead your life, the way you take things, that is something you choose. If my theory is right and the fourth kid is yours and Emma's, then that night should have happened. But the way it happened was your choice. Even if you tell me about it in a low voice with a bowed head, I can see the way your eyes sparkle when you talk about Emma. That night the two of you were one again, were happy and were complete. There is no reason not to believe that will not happen again."
Neal sighed, and his shoulder dropped, like until that moment there was a heavy weigh over them. He tilted his head, laying it on Belle's shoulder, and whispering "Thank you."
She caressed his head, and whispered back "You're welcome."
They stayed for some time like that, both thinking about past and future and what would happen. Neal finally spoke, in a rushed tone.
"Do you really think Emma is pregnant again?"
Belle sighed.
"There is no way to know for sure, Neal. Maybe we should talk to someone that knows more about prophecies than us. Maybe we should tell Regina."
He raised his head.
"No. She may have changed, but I don't totally trust her." He suddenly knew what he needed to do. "I need to find them. I need to find Emma and Henry, and make sure that she is not going through all of it alone again. There is only one thing..."
"What is it?" she asked, as he kept staring at her.
"I don't want to leave you alone."
She smiled to him.
"Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself. Besides, I have Snow and Charming, Aurora and Phillip and all the others. I will be fine. You should go find your family."
Neal took some seconds to voice what was on his head.
"What if... I can't come back? What if I can't make Emma and Henry remember everything?"
"Then you are going to be happy, Neal. You deserve it, and I know you can find happiness with them."
Neal smiled to her. Belle was turning out to be more his mother than he could remember of his real one ever being.
"Things will work out." he said, finally putting a hand on top of hers, that was resting on her flat stomach. "And I will see you again, and meet my sister."
"Yes, you will."
Words that they both had proffered to loved ones, now were proffered to each other.