1...5...10...12 minutes

They let the fog consume them, let it take them over and grow thicker and thicker with each passing moment. She felt like she was choking, like it was suffocating her…or was that just how she was doomed to feel for the rest of her life now? Neal's arm stayed tight around her waist as the world seemed to move around her, even if she couldn't see it. There was a girl, yelling. She could hear her. Ruby. She'd made it, she'd arrived and she was lost in the fog calling out for Granny, who quickly replied. But they got nowhere. Ruby's voice kept getting closer to her and farther from Granny's as she struggled to find her, the strange sensations throwing off even Ruby's well honed abilities.

She should say something. She should help. She should tell her where Granny was. She should yell out that she was there, that she was going in the wrong direction.

But she didn't want to. She didn't want to do anything anymore. And suddenly...she didn't have to.

It was hard to say what happened. One second they were there, standing on a street in Storybrooke, then there was a crash of thunder that filled her ears before a sheer deafening kind of silence, and the next second the crash had returned and she felt different. The ground felt uneven beneath her feet, the clothes she was wearing felt heavier, and her hair was no longer hanging there against her face.

She wasn't the only one to feel it. The arm that she'd felt around her waist, the one that belonged to Neal disappeared after a startled jerk and the fog cleared enough for her to see him glance down at his hands, confused! And for good reason. His jacket was gone, replaced with leather gloves, a green shirt covered by a leather vest, and a green cloak. He looked shocked, but no more than she was! How strange. It took shock to startle her out of her shock!

But then it was there again...she knew this dress, she knew this cloak, and the necklace around her neck that once belonged to her mother…she knew this land.

The smoke was finally beginning to clear and she could see clearly that they were standing in the middle of a forest that smelled of pine and magic. The Enchanted Forest. The curse had been broken in every way now, reversed, undone, and…they weren't alone.

"Are you alright?" she glanced over at the person who had spoken. A man, who was talking to a woman. She felt as though she'd seen the man before but just couldn't place him. She felt like she knew him from a dream…but then everything felt like a dream right now. And as shock and sadness crept back over her skin she realized that maybe it wasn't him she knew, just the look he had on his face as he looked the strange woman over. Concern. Adoration. Love.

She was beginning to feel like she couldn't breathe again as she watched the pair.

"I…I think so," the woman breathed back to the man, looking him over as well. Care. Worry. Love. Her heart felt as though it was being squeezed again, her body trembled as she fought to keep it in, to hide it. "What was that?!" the woman asked.

"I don't know," he answered, but as they reached for each other they turned and were suddenly aware that they were not alone either…not anymore. They seemed shocked, staring at the small group that was missing so many essential people, before the woman suddenly seemed to have a flash of recognition. "Snow!" she called out, surprised. "What happened?"

So much. So, so much had happened. She didn't even know where to begin to tell it all. But Snow seemed to. At least she was the one that took the lead, taking a few timid steps forward before whispering in a sad voice "we're back."

Back.

They were back. But back where? Home? No, no she'd never be home again. She could go anywhere, be anywhere, here, the castle, her father's kingdom, Storybrooke the truth was none of those had ever been home, not for her. He was home. He was safety and shelter and everything good and now…

She couldn't handle it, she couldn't contain it and suddenly she couldn't bring herself to care to or even want to try. She could barely handle standing on her own, wearing the same damn dress she'd been wearing the blessed day he'd walked into her life. She was barely aware of the Charmings stepping forward, of their small group breaking off and talking with the strangers about what had happened, talking with each other as she turned on her heel and walked away. Their arguments, their screams, their happiness and sadness at being home, none of it mattered to her! She was broken, undone, just like the curse. And it was simply too much for her to take in just after he'd…

"Belle!" she heard Ruby call out her name but she did her best to walk faster, into the trees away from the girl. He'd die before he ever let anything happen to me. She'd told Ruby that once upon a time. Oh how she wished she had been wrong! Oh how she wanted Ruby's belief that it wasn't true to be the real truth. "Belle, where are you going?!" she called again, but at the sound of footsteps she kicked off her shoes and ran determined not to stop for anyone. She couldn't talk to her right now...she just...

She couldn't.

But there was another voice fading into the distance behind her. Not Ruby. Not Granny. Bae. Baelfire. "I've got it," she barely heard him tell Ruby as she ran.

"I don't understand, what-"

"I said, I've got it under control, I'll handle it!"

But he couldn't. He couldn't handle it! He couldn't bring his father back from the dead, he couldn't get him back for her, there was nothing anyone could do. Nothing was right about anything that had happened and the fact that they were back in the Enchanted Forest was the least of her worries. If only her body knew that and would just let her run until her feet bled or she fell off the edge of the world, if only she felt nothing on the outside just as much as she did on the inside, then the small sharp stone she'd stepped on wouldn't have brought her to a stand-still just at the edge of the tree line. That small stone wouldn't have been enough to bring new tears to her eyes, or make her feel like the world was too small, or she was too big for it, or that no matter how she thought about it she just didn't fit the way that she had before when he'd-

"Hey," Baelfire had caught up to her, but she turned away. She didn't want anyone to see her cry. At the moment she just didn't want to be seen by anyone, least of all his son, who had his looks and mannerisms. Comforting before, now they were just a terribly painful reminder. She just couldn't handle that right now.

Bae had other plans. Instead of letting her go, he reappeared again on the other side of her. "Are you okay?" Bae asked reaching out to touch her shoulder. She avoided him, fell against the trunk of a tree, cornered there by water, bark, and his son. Was she okay?! Her answer should have been generic, a simple "I'm fine" brushed away without a thought, hours ago it might have been! But she couldn't say that now. She'd just seen the only man she'd ever loved die in front of her eyes. She was far from fine. Fortunately, Bae seemed to have caught his mistake moments after saying it and looked her over carefully. "Are you hurt?" he corrected.

She still couldn't manage the words, because in her mind it didn't matter, but she did manage to shake her head to satisfy Baelfire's kind intentions, hoping it would make him go away. No, she wasn't hurt physically, but in every other way she was broken, altered. She'd never be the same again.

"You dropped these," he muttered holding something out for her. Her shoes. He probably would have caught her before if he hadn't stopped to collect them for her. Her hand automatically reached out for them but didn't put them on, just let them hang there from her hand like a dead weight. Dead. She felt dead. She didn't even know where to go from this place. What to do first or next or now. Nothing made sense any more! All she truly wanted was to lay down and go to sleep. She felt like she'd lived a hundred years without it.

"You, uh...back at the diner, you said you didn't have any family," Bae went on gently in her silence, "was that true?"

He thought that she'd lied to him when she'd said that? Didn't believe her? Rumple would have understood, would have known the full weight of her words then. Of course she had a family, her father and Gaston she assumed were out there somewhere, but she'd never go back to them. She couldn't. He wouldn't have wanted her to, and after all that she'd accomplished, all that he'd helped her to become, going back to her former life would have been disrespectful, an insult to his memory. He promised her he'd keep her safe, that she'd never have to return to that life...and now being here, in this dress, in this world... No, she had no family. Not anymore. She couldn't. How many people would die to ensure she lived in her lifetime. Her mother, Anna, Rumple...

"Look..." Bae shifted his weight almost nervously, and sidled up closer to her after taking another look around. "I just watched my own family disappear off into the sunset with their own version of a happily ever after...and it didn't include me. Emma and Henry are gone, Papa's gone, so right now, like it or not, you're pretty much it for me too."

She glanced up, startled at his words. Was this the same person? The same one who had just told her that he didn't need her to mother him? Was she the same person who had told him that if he ever needed to talk, needed a friend, she was around? She wasn't sure, not anymore. She had been that girl, once. But that girl had also been happy and complete. The exact opposite of what she felt now! She didn't feel like she was capable of being "it" for anyone at the moment.

Then again, the man that she'd talked to had been resistant and suspicious of her. He seemed put together, at least more so than she was, but maybe he was different now too. She'd never know if she didn't at least try to say something to him. He was offering a hand, and right now, drowning in sorrow and loneliness as she was, a hand would be something. Maybe she didn't need to be the "it" at the moment. Maybe she just needed to let someone else to fill that role for her right now. Could Baelfire do that?

"What do we do?" she asked, her voice small and feeble, raw. How was she supposed to ever be normal again. She had no idea what came next, did he?

"We stick with the group," he insisted uneasily. "Figure out what the hell happened to us exactly, and what's going on, then see if there is anything we can do to get back."

Back? Back?! Back to Storybrooke? Back to…

Henry.

And Emma.

He was his father's son, and she could see that he was already beginning to put together a plan in his head, based on nothing but a sliver of hope. He wanted to get back to find Emma and Henry, and she couldn't say she blamed him. She'd do anything to get Rumple back. But hope and reality were two very different things.

She honestly wasn't sure that there was hope, that it existed as she once thought it did. Rumple had lived hundreds of years, planned and been patient for an eternity, without him, she just wasn't convinced that there was anything left to believe in. But she had nothing else left of him, of their life together, nothing but Baelfire. To not look after him, to not help him, if only to make sure he didn't lose himself in his obsession as his father nearly had too many times to count was a much better idea than sulking. And if anything did happen to Baelfire because she hadn't been there, because she had carelessly tossed him away... He wouldn't want her to go back to her old life. But he'd want her and Baelfire to be safe. He'd want them to be "it" for each other. They had been just as much the cause of his sacrifice as Henry.

"Look, you don't have to stay with me if you don't want to..." Bae continued in her silence, "just don't run off right now, with everything like it is. Just-"

"Where do we start?" she interrupted in a less than insistent voice. Living was going to be hard. She'd go with him, for herself, for Rumple, and for Baelfire. But she wasn't quite sure she could bring herself to ever believe in hope again, or be happy or excited about anything. One step forward was all she could manage at the moment.

Neal never broke into a smile, but she could see a relieved look in his eyes at her words. He'd gotten her to go along with him, as far as he knew this conversation had been a success. If only he really knew...

"We start by getting you something better to go hiking through the forest in," he commented looking her up and down. She nodded. She wanted out of this dress! This was the last thing that she wanted to be wearing right now, the last thing that she wanted to see ever again because it represented everything she'd been before he came back into her life. But Neal's reasons for wanting her to change were probably more sensible at the moment. If they were going to wander around the woods with a group of people figuring out what to do next, then a gown like this was not appropriate attire. She didn't need Lacey to know that. But how was she supposed to-

Courage.

She needed courage to move on from here, to even just pretend like she was living again.

So, she glanced at Bae, at Neal, seeing his father's eyes in his concerned gaze, and wrapped her trembling hand around his arm.

He steadied her, let her lean on him while she put her shoes back on. Then she let him lead her back to the larger group on uneasy ground.

Hi! For those of you that are just checking out this fiction, welcome! For those of you who are a fan of the Moments Series, welcome back! I hope you'll enjoy this fiction. It's the 6th in the Moments Series, a series that is an attempt at an accurate portrayal of Belle's perspective during the Once Upon a Time series. This fiction features everything that happened in The Enchanted Forest during the missing year. It begins with them arriving in the Enchanted Forest, touches on all twelve months they are there, and ends with the curse being cast to take everyone back to Storybrooke.

Also, if you enjoy this fiction, please review! I always enjoy those wonderful gems waiting for me in my inbox and I love writing back to thank you personally for reading and reviewing! It helps me know that I'm doing a decent job! Peace and Happy Reading!