A/N: First time ever writing anything for any fandom, so constructive criticism is appreciated. Written pre 2x13 seems I just had to get this out of my system.

Disclaimer: I own nothing here, I'm just playing with it.

Not Her

Ever since the shooting there had been a multitude if people trying to tell her who she is, or at least who she used to be.

They tell her that her name's Isabelle but that she despises it, so makes everyone she knows call her Belle. They tell her that she's in love with that man. The one who visited her. The one who scared her. They say his name is Mr Gold. The way that they all speak to her about it they make it sound like some sort of tragic love story, but she isn't sure that she believes them. Surely, if she was as in love with this man as they say she was, she would feel something for him, even if it was purely a slight sense of familiarity. But she doesn't. The only thing she feels towards him is pity, because it is plain to see that he is searching for something in her that is well and truly lost.

She tries to feel happy that there are all these people who seem to care about her. There are all of these people that seem to love her, but she just can't seem to feel anything towards these virtual strangers. Because despite their assumed connection to the old her, despite all their supposed knowledge of her habits and her life, she has absolutely no control over how she feels or what she can remember, and sometimes their expectations of who she should be are too much pressure to take.

No matter how hard she tries she simply doesn't feel like she is this Belle that they tell her she is. She doesn't recall an immense love of books. She doesn't feel especially mild mannered or sweet or kind hearted or any of the synonyms for 'a good person' that these strangers repeatedly tell her she is. If anything she feels like this version of her, whoever she turns out to be, is prone to over dramatic fits of temper or panic, not at all like the level-headed librarian that they described her as.

It makes her wonder if any of them ever truly knew her at all. It makes her wonder if the person they describe to her ever really existed, or if it was a mask that this Belle had hidden behind. It makes her wonder how disappointed they'll be when they realise that their friend, if she ever really existed, is now well and truly gone. That their Belle is no longer there.

She hopes that they won't hold the loss of their friend against her.


Upon her release from the hospital she goes to live in the apartment intended for the librarian above the library. She's been told that this is where she lived before her accident. It seems to her a nice enough place to live and, although, she supposedly lived there before, it comes as no surprise to her that she holds no memories, good or bad, of the place. She hadn't expected this to be a magical exception to her lack of memory. At this point she's resigned herself to starting over from scratch in every respect and at this point she just wants to get on with it.

Over the next few weeks, after resuming her former self's post as Sorybrooke's librarian, a task she took on in the vain hope of keeping her mind occupied with something other than her lack of memories, she is surprised to discover that not all of what her acquaintances have told her about herself is false. She does really love books, and can spend hours getting lost in the new worlds she finds within the pages. This gives her hope that maybe the person she used to be is not completely lost. That maybe the person that the people she meets know and love is not completely lost. Although, despite what she hopes, she's not delusional enough that their Belle will ever truly return. Even if she does get her memory back she's a different person now. The damage is done and there are no magical fixes. She hopes that her seeming more like her 'old self' doesn't get their hopes up, only to have them dashed when they realise she's not suddenly privy to what has passed between them in the past; that they're not disappointed when she simply doesn't just suddenly know them again.

In an attempt to try and emphasise the difference between the person she was and the person that she now is she tells her new friends and acquaintances to call her Isabelle. She hopes that this will help them accept and remember that she is not the same person they knew. She just doesn't want to hurt anyone any more than she already has.

For the most part, however, this attempt to split from the old Belle, to split form their Belle is a complete failure. She is disappointed by the fact that they can't separate the new her from the old, she is not, however, surprised. She supposes it must be hard to completely separate their old friend from the almost-stranger wearing her face. She cannot imagine how strange it must be for all the people who knew her to have to get to know her all over again.

In fact everyone she meets has trouble in keeping with her new choice of name. Everyone except one. Ruby, the curious young woman who works in the diner is the only one in the entire town who remembers to call her Isabelle now. She wonders why that is, why this one girl succeeds where everyone else fails.

At first she supposed that she and the waitress simply must not have been friends or really known each other at all before her injury, so she reasons that calling her by a new name must not have been much of an adjustment to the young woman. But then she sometimes sees Ruby looking at her from across the room, her striking green eyes full to the brim with pain and something akin to longing or, on the rare occasions that they speak she'll see the friendly yet detached expression that so often takes residence on the waitress' face falter, for just a second, to one of absolute sadness, and she knows somehow that that just can't be the case. The feelings that she gets from the scarce moments of interaction make her wonder what exactly she meant to this beautiful, but so obviously broken girl.

Her suspicions that she and Ruby knew each other are confirmed one morning as she's being served in the diner by Ruby's Grandmother. She learns that she used to live in Granny's Inn with her and Ruby. She learns that she and Ruby, the girl who has made no attempt to be her friend, or even talk to her outside of her duties as a waitress, were close friends. Best friends according to Granny.

Isabelle doesn't quite know what to do with this information. She's surprised to say the least. Sure she'd suspected that they'd known each other to some degree, but not that they'd meant anything particularly special to each other. Nobody had mentioned this to her before and Ruby, in all the time that she had been out of the hospital, had given no indication that they were anything other than casual acquaintances.

She can't understand why, if they were such good friends, Ruby hadn't reached out to her? Why didn't she try like all the others? Why, if their friendship was as important to her as Granny said it was, wasn't she first in line to see her in the hospital? Why doesn't she want to be her friend anymore?

More so than all of this, she can't understand why Ruby's rejection hurts so much.

It shouldn't hurt. She knows this. It's completely irrational, the amount of pain that she's feeling from the loss of a friend that she didn't even know she ever possessed, but that doesn't stop it from hurting all the same. Now that she knows that she's missing something that was important to her, even though she had no idea about it only hours earlier, it hurts so much and she doesn't know how to make it stop. She just wants it to stop.

She thinks maybe, if she could understand why Ruby doesn't want to talk to this version of her, that maybe the pain would go away. Maybe she could stop torturing herself over this. But other than to take her order and general pleasantries, Ruby won't talk to her, she even looks at her unless she has to. Why won't Ruby talk to her? She just needs to understand!


Over the following weeks the questions continue to plague her, driving her to the point of distraction. No matter how hard she tries, however, she just can't seem to find the answers and she doesn't know who to ask for help. She doesn't know who could possibly help her find the answers she needs.

After giving up on sleep once again, rather than lying awake alone in the dark, she decides to take a walk in the hope that it will make her brain calm down. She doesn't know why this suddenly seems like a good idea, but she hopes that this is what she needs right now.

She's walking near the docks when she sees her. Ruby. She wonders why the girl that has occupied her every waking thought for weeks is out sitting in the street in the middle of the night. She supposes it's just one more question for her to answer about the mysterious girl. One more question that she doubts she'll ever find the answer to.

She doesn't think that she's been seen by the girl, so takes her time to observe the waitress as she realises it's the first time she's seen the girl outside of the diner. There's no denying that she is beautiful, but she can't help but note that she seems despondent, not just because of the forlorn expression on her face, but the way that she is slumped forwards, arms hugged around her middle, as if she is trying to hold herself together. Belle feels a pull on her heart as she watches her. She doesn't want her to be sad. It physically hurts her that the girl around whom basically her entire existence has seemed to revolve lately is in some sort of distress. She wants to reach out to her, she wants to help her, but she doesn't know what she can do. She doesn't know anything about her or how to help her.

She stands in the shadows, watching the young woman desperately trying to keep her emotions in check, but it is not until she sees tears start to fall silently from Ruby's eyes that she decides that she has to do something about this girl's pain. That she can't just stand there and watch as she falls apart.

'Are you alright?' she asks as she walks towards the waitress. She sees Ruby tense at the sound of her voice, but otherwise receives no acknowledgement that her question had been heard.

Unfazed by Ruby's lack of response she continues to talk as she sits down next to the girl. 'I mean you're clearly not okay, I can see that you're crying, but it's polite to ask, isn't it? That's what you're supposed to say when someone's sad. That's what you're supposed to say when you want to help.'

She knows that she's rambling at this point but she's nervous. This girl is her greatest mystery and has become a point of something like obsession to her as of late, and she just wants Ruby to say something, anything to her after months of superficial niceties and no conversation.

Annoyed by Ruby's silence and seeming unwillingness to even acknowledge her presence, Belle feels months worth of pent up frustration, built up from nights of hopeless, fruitless, speculation about the girl and the state of their non-relationship and conspicuous lack of relationship of any kind, flow through her veins.

She feels it burning within her as it finally bursts forth from within her. 'My God!' she exclaims, 'why won't you just talk to me?!' she shouts at a visibly surprised Ruby, who continues to sit there in silence.

'I know we were friends once,' she says once she is calmed down enough to control her angry outburst. 'Granny told me that we were friend once. She told me that we were close, so why won't you talk to me?' she asked, practically begging the other girl to respond.

She sees Ruby turn to look at her, and for the first time that she can remember Ruby doesn't flinch and turn away when she looks back at her.

'I don't know what you want me to say,' she hears Ruby say, her volume barely above a whisper.

'Just tell me the truth,' Belle breathed in reply.

She watches as Ruby takes a steadying breath and turns her head away from her. In that moment she worries that he isn't going to get a reply. That is until Ruby begins to speak.

'I can't talk to you, because I don't know how to talk to you,' she hears Ruby begin. 'You say that you know that we were friends, and yes you may know that but you don't know what it was like, our friendship. I can't talk to you because you're not her. You're not her.' She hears Ruby's voice break as she says this, like she's realising once again that the girl she knew was gone.

'You're not the girl that I spent time with. You're not the girl I got to know. And…' she hears Ruby's voice break once again 'no matter how much you look like her, and sound like her… you're not the girl I fell in love with.' She hears Ruby whisper as she turns to look at her once again.

She stares intently at Ruby's face, wanting nothing more than to be able to make everything better for her, but knows that there is nothing that she can realistically do to take the pain away, because she knows that Ruby's right, no matter how much she is trying to be, she's not the girl that Ruby once knew, and she doesn't know how to change that.

Ruby reaches forwards and cups her cheek as she continues to speak, 'That's why I don't talk to you Isabelle,' Ruby said wiping an errant tear from her companions face, 'It hurts too much to be constantly reminded that she's gone and she's not coming back.'

With that Ruby stood and began to walk away as the girl with the face of the woman she loves watches her, drowning in borrowed pain.