What Rumplestiltskin doesn't know is that when he kicked Belle out, Regina was the one to pick up the pieces.
Desperation
From one owner to the next.
Another evil whispering in her ear, "you are mine now and you will never, ever leave."
But a broken heart doesn't care where it is. It doesn't matter to Belle; she can be miserable just as well with the Queen as she can in a tavern.
She sees so much of Rumplestiltskin in the Queen's eyes. Sometimes it makes the air catch in her lungs and she can't breathe for the shock of it. She has to turn her head and look away.
There's so much power inside of them, filled to the brim with confidence and strength and that terrifying, overwhelming need to dominate. It's in their secure looks of superiority as they play and dance and laugh. It's in the fact that everyone knows they can and will back up their threats and warning glances.
Everyone knows.
And that evil coiling inside of them basks in it.
But there's tragedy and cowardice, too. So much of it. Something happened, though she does not know what, that has made them too scared to accept the past and move on. They were hurt, somehow, and it makes them own the role of villain because they're too afraid to be heroes.
Belle is terrified that she will become like them. That one day she will see that needy, lonely look in her own eyes and nothing will ever be good enough to fill the void, that terrible ache Rumplestiltskin left in her.
She wonders if one day she will follow in their footsteps and take out her pain and anger on the rest of the world because it hurts too much to bear alone.
Desperation, she realizes, is the price for true power.
She drops the cup but it doesn't chip. No, it breaks into three uneven pieces.
It's funny how you can't replicate the perfection of ruination.
Belle says, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, it was an accident." And she's really just parroting the words because they're so alike, so very alike, that she knows the Queen isn't going to care.
The Queen waves her hand and just like that, just like that, the glass lifts into the air, coils around itself and is restored. Why, it even shines like it's come straight from the wash.
There's a flash of teeth in the Queen's smile like she expects Belle to be impressed with a parlor trick. She can level mountains, flood rivers and steal the hearts of men; they both know a cup is a ridiculous display of power.
All the same, Belle and says, "Good as new," with a gracious smile, "Thank you."
The Queen says, "Lucky for you they hold no sentimental value to me," a flash of teeth in the Queen's smile... "Dearie."
It's too much, all too much and Belle can't bear it for another second. That that witch knows and, yes, she probably deserved the quip for being so pathetic as to break teacups. For the fact that some days she can't breathe because it hurts and never lessens and all she has to show for it is this horrible, terrible gilded cage with a woman whose delight is found in knowing Belle is trapped.
What did Rumplestiltskin do that she has to suffer in his place? What could he possibly have done to the Queen that Belle has to pay the price?
She picks up the cups, one by one, and throws them, chucks them across the room to shatter with loud crashes and the promise that a violent tantrum will ease her pain.
She wonders what Rumplestiltskin is doing and if he's taking his pain and anger out on the world or out on a person.
She knows he's taking it out on something.
And then she's thrown into the wall.
Belle doesn't shatter but she can't breathe. The impact knocks the air from her lungs and when she falls down the wall she lands in glass that cuts her hands and tears her dress.
The Queen is fuming, fed up and furious and Belle might die, right here, right now. She might be ripped open and dissected because of her sentiment to the looks Rumplestiltskin gave her when he watched her over the rim of a stupid fucking cup.
There are sparks of lightening at the Queen's fingertips and she smells of ozone.
Belle wants to tell the Queen, and she should, that she doesn't look powerful or dominant or larger-than-life. That all Belle sees is a girl who wants to beat out the emotion in others because it hurts to much to see how strongly others can feel when she cannot.
Belle doesn't believe, not for one moment, that the disgust in the Queen's eyes has anything to do with her.
She wants to say this but her lips won't form the words. She is afraid. She doesn't want to be hurt.
The Queen kneels down beside her, grabs her jaw and says, "You deserve better, Belle, than a man who would throw you away for one misguided mistake."
Belle clenches her teeth and the Queen asks, "Don't you?"
She does. Yes, of course she does. But that's not what happened.
The Queen's fingers squeeze before she jerks Belle's head away. "Fine. Pine away. I'm sure it's appreciated."
"Knowledge is power." Belle says morosely because Rumplestiltskin loves her and that is why she's here.
Is it the only reason?
The Queen smiles that beaming smile. She looks like a viper trying to be a garter snake, "Look who's caught on."
"You can't beat him."
A flash of ire in the Queen's eyes at how impudent she is.
They are so very alike.
Belle shakes her head at how slow the Queen can be. "He hasn't come for me. He isn't looking. If I'm your trump card, you will not win."
And then it's the Queen who's shaking her head at how very slow Belle can be. It rankles and burns and Belle wants nothing more than to slap it off her face. She drinks out of her perfect pristine cup and says, "And who's to say I wouldn't stay?"
The cautiously heartened look in the Queen's eyes makes Belle smile.
It's really all the retribution she needs.
The Queen kisses her and nothing happens. There's no magic or wonder or joy. The Queen doesn't make her feel like a God who can cure all the evil in the world and save the universe by forgiving its sins.
But...
But neither is she shoved aside. The Queen doesn't check her hands and face just to make sure Belle's not contagious. There's no screaming or accusations and Belle isn't shaken or thrown away.
That means it isn't love.
Belle flinches and steps back. She stares into the Queen's eyes. The surface of them is cold and mocking but Belle looks closer, past the black make up and the furrowed brow. There's more, she knows, so much more to the Queen than the darkness she wraps around her like armor.
No one, no one, knows how hard it is to believe everyone is good at heart and capable of receiving and giving love like Belle does. And she was powerful enough to break the curse of the strongest man in all the world and that makes her powerful enough to see... To see...
The seconds tick into a minute and the Queen scoffs in disgust and moves away. She is hurt by the rejection.
Rumplestiltskin really only ever wanted a friend and all the Queen really wants is a family.
The problem is they want it all on their own selfish, self-involved terms.
She knows she's right, she knows all the Queen really wants is to belong, when Belle closes the distance between them and cups her face and kisses her.
She tries to hide it but Belle sees, oh how she sees, the Queen's eyes begging, 'Love me, love me, love me. Please, please, please.'
The price of power.
The Queen says, "You're thinking about him. Again." It's a warning, a threat.
She is, of course she is, "It was True Love." and that means everything.
...Doesn't it?
The Queen scoffs, "And did it bring you happiness?"
It did. She knows it did. Before all the tears and the hurt and wondering why she wasn't good enough and wasn't worth the price of his magic.
"Well?"
Belle knows the answer, she knows love is everything!
So why does she feel nothing? "I don't know." Sleepless nights crying. Her throat hurting from wracking sobs. Red rimmed swollen eyes that left her head pounding from sharp and cruel heartbreak. "Maybe." She doesn't cry anymore. The pain is not the same. It's dull and pointless because when she thinks of that night in the dungeon, thrown to her knees and staring at a chipped cup, she feels numb. Numb and nothing else. "I don't remember."
"What's the point of love if this is what it gets you?" the Queen asks.
She doesn't know if Rumplestiltskin is aware the Queen is holding her hostage but she doubts it. She doesn't really believe he'd throw her to the wolves.
They do, after all, love each other.
Love that's so overwhelming that it made her strong enough, powerful enough, to tear down the curse of the Dark One and make him human.
If only for a second.
They love each other and there is concrete proof of that and no one can take it away.
It's a fact.
It's a fact.
It's a fact.
...But she just doesn't feel it.
The first time is all pulling and pushing. She feels like a doll being manipulated by kisses that are too hard and hands that are too rough. The Queen tastes every inch of her while she lays there, unsure of where to put her hands and embarrassed by every guttural mewling moaning gasping panting noise she makes.
Belle's never done this before. Everything she knows about sex comes from overheard conversations of giddy maids talking about their conquest who were always, always men.
Belle doesn't know how satisfying her embrace is for the Queen but they stay together for hours until Belle is sore and exhausted.
She hasn't quite caught up to what just happened but she turns on her side anyways and drapes a gentle arm over the Queen's stomach. She closes her eyes and wills herself pleasant dreams.
She will not be broken, she will not become hard and emotionless.
The Queen hums an approving sound and Belle tells herself that she pushes closer to the Queen because she's warm and soft and inviting. Not because she's the enemy and there's a thrill in knowing she could take her own revenge, right here and now, and chooses not to.
Belle stares in the mirror and wills Rumplestiltskin to see her.
If the Queen can spy on him, then surely he can spy in turn.
But all his mirrors are covered.
She turns the mirror towards her bed and the Queen laughs, "Putting on a show, dearie?" because she knows, she always just knows.
Belle frowns, "Why do you do that?" but before the Queen can reply, "You're just like him."
"Does that mean you love me, too?"
They kiss and nothing happens. The Queen has her answer.
She sneers, "You know nothing of love."
"Tell me?" Belle asks, and she would get on her knees and beg for the answer is she thought the Queen could explain, in terms she could understand, this mystery to her.
How can love be so barren?
But the Queen says nothing. She's contemplating the mirror. She raises her hand, looking sinister and gleeful and so very lovely in her malice. Belle says, "It won't matter."
She can summon Rumplestiltskin, and maybe he would even appear, but it would be hollow and in vain.
If he isn't looking, she doesn't want to be found.
Belle slips the straps of her dress off her shoulders, threads her fingers through the Queen's hand and kisses the tips of them. She says, "But leave it."
"All magic comes with a price."
"Did he tell you that?"
Yes. Yes, he did. But, more importantly, he showed her. Every day when he looked at her with his demonic eyes and touched her with his golden skin. The price he pays is written all over his body.
One day the Queen will look like that. The price she pays is written in her soul but, eventually, she won't be able to hide it behind eyeliner and lipstick. She will look on the outside as she is on the inside.
The Queen says, "All love comes at a price."
"I know."
Emptiness. Disorienting, traumatic and deadening emptiness.
She is living proof.
But, then, so is the Queen.
Belle is on her knees between the Queen's thighs because the Queen said, "Worship me," and it was so hilarious, so god awful dramatic, that she felt it was well deserved.
Nails are in her hair, pushing and clenching and when the fingers rake across her scalp, something catches in her hair.
Belle looks up.
There's a ring on her finger, so unremarkable that it stands out glaringly. The Queen is never unremarkable.
Belle asks, "What is it?" but what she's really asking is 'whose'
The Queen stares at her like she has somehow betrayed her by daring to ask and Belle has her answer.
She runs her fingers softly over the Queen's stomach, adds a bite of nails down her thighs and gently says, "I'm not thinking about you, either."
She's going to throw her arms around him and kiss him. Over and over and over, she's going to hold him tightly, hold him dear and kiss him like she kisses the Queen, greedy and hungry with teeth and tongue and desperation.
The price of true power.
And that power, oh, she will see it scrawl across him until he's so mortal and so ordinary and so very loved that the magic will drain from his veins and run screaming in the face of it.
And the price will be his enemies at the gates.
Belle cries that night because all she wants is his eyes looking at her with love and weakness and pain so thick she can taste it.
And Belle can't bring herself to truly care.
The Queen comes home with a box and a scroll and asks, "Do you still want to know what love is, dearie?"
A thrill of fear goes through her as the Queen opens the box.
It takes her a moment to realize what she's looking at.
"Is it his?" She asks.
"No," the Queen says looking down at the heart. There's that weakness in her again, that need to be loved. She looks soft in that moment, soft and hurting because the Queen is always, always hurting, "It's my fath—"
Belle rests her fingers on the Queen's lips, she shakes her head to tell her it's okay. They don't have to talk about it. She knows how very afraid the Queen is to share her wounds. She knows, oh so well, how damaging it can be to open yourself up to someone who would rather knock you down than help you heal and, frankly, all Belle can think is, "Then I don't care."
END.
Thanks to wily-one24 for the beta!