Belle breathed in a sharp gasp as she took in the sight in front of her. Never in her wildest imagination could she have pictured Rumple in such a state. His dark eyes were dull as they stared out at her, blinking rapidly in the afternoon sunshine. The part of his face that wasn't obscured by beard looked waxy and pale, his skin pulled tight over his bones. If he hadn't been standing directly in front of her, she wouldn't have believed it.
Then he was falling to his knees, gasping out her name in a voice hoarse from disuse. What had happened to him?
But of course, she already knew the answer to that. She had left him, and right on the heels of his son's death. Her Rumple, her True Love, reduced to nothing and it was her fault. She had done this.
"Rumple?" she said, dropping to her knees in front of him and brushing his dirty hair out of his eyes. His whole body was trembling beneath her touch as he looked up at her.
"You're real?" he rasped out? "Are you really here?"
His dark eyes had taken on an almost manic gleam as Belle nodded, blinking the tears from her eyes. She was too overcome, too shocked to voice the millions of thoughts running through her head.
Rumplestiltskin reached out a hand, gripping her shoulder tightly, mirroring his actions the day she had turned up at his shop with no memory of who he was and filled with confusion. The thought of that day just makes the tears come harder. He had thought she was dead then. This time he knew she was alive, out there somewhere no longer wanting him.
When his hand met with solid flesh and bone, Rumple's eyes lit up, burning out of his hollow eye sockets like some fire had been lit within. A second later he had wrapped Belle in his bony arms, clutching her to his sunken chest.
He smelled stale, like something kept in storage for years on end gathering dust in some forgotten corner. He needed a shower and a shave and a good meal, but all she could do was cling to him. She didn't deserve his love. She didn't deserve this welcome. She was the foulest creature alive for what she'd done to him.
She'd been angry when she found out about the dagger, but more than that she'd been hurt. For a few shining months she had believed that she was enough. That Rumple had finally put his past behind him, trusted her completely, loved her more than his power and his magic.
And then the Snow Queen had appeared and the dagger hadn't worked. She'd summoned him until her voice was raw from gasping in the cold, and he'd never come. And that's when Belle had known the truth. She would never be enough.
Rumple had eventually shown up, rescuing her from an icy prison. When they'd arrived home, Rumple's coat wrapped around her shoulders to ward out the cold, his hands rubbing hers to work the warmth back into them, she'd stepped away. She'd pulled the dagger from her bag and placed it down on the coffee table in front of him.
She hadn't said a word, but Rumple knew immediately what had happened.
He had sputtered for a moment, trying to talk his way out of it, telling her that Zelena had to pay for her crimes, that he needed his power to protect her.
"Was it always a fake?" she'd interrupted him. "When you proposed, was it..." she couldn't finish the thought, it just hurt too much.
Rumple's eyes were wide and beseeching when he admitted the truth.
"Yes," he said quietly.
Belle had started to pack immediately.
In truth, she hadn't meant to stay away so long. She just knew she had to get away, that she couldn't look at him because if she did she would forgive him. She could so easily sweep this away, fall into his arms, let him tell her he'd done it all for her, believe his lies. She knew if she stayed she would let him manipulate her again and again. She had to be stronger than that.
So she'd loaded up the car Rumple had bought her, taking her clothes and her books and her chipped cup. She wouldn't leave him even that.
Once she'd backed out of the driveway, not daring to look back through her rearview mirror, she'd been at a loss as to where to go. She couldn't bear the thought of going to her father, who'd tried so hard to accept her marriage but never really would. She couldn't stand to see the pity in his eyes, to hear "I told you so". She didn't have many friends in town. She didn't like the idea of going to Granny's to rent a room, having the eyes of the whole town upon her. Granny, Ruby, Leroy, anyone in this town she was friendly with would say the same thing. That she was better off without him.
They would think they were telling the truth, but Belle knew it to be false. He was her True Love. She would never love anyone else, and she would always forgive him.
So she'd headed for the town line. Because right now, she didn't want to forgive and it seemed so pleasant to forget.
She stopped just shy of the sign heralding that she was now leaving Storybrooke. The sight of the town line still gave her shivers. She almost imagined she could still feel the bullet piercing her shoulder, knocking her across the line and into Rumple's arms. She'd been so confused, so afraid. Just like that her memories were gone. When Rumple had healed her she'd thought she was hallucinating. Either that or she had died and he was some demon sent to drag her to the depths of hell.
She could feel the panic rising in her chest and she forced it down, telling herself to be brave.
No one had crossed the town line since Zelena's death. There were no more flying monkeys to prevent people from leaving, but no one had wanted to experiment, to see if the memory wipe still held even under Snow and Charming's new curse.
Belle got out of the car and walked toward the line, holding her breath. It would be so easy to just step across and let fate do what it would. Either she'd be able to leave with her memories in tact, or she'd forget she was Belle, wife of Rumplestiltskin. She wondered if she'd go back to the blank slate she had been or if Regina's imposition of Lacey would hold.
She stood there for what could have been hours, weighing her decision. She wanted to see the world, had a glove box full of maps she'd never expected to use. If she remained herself, she could travel. Maybe after a bit of cool down time she would return. Maybe Rumple would be willing to fight for her, for them. Maybe her leaving was the kick in the arse he needed.
She didn't believe that, not really. She knew Rumple had been abandoned by every person he'd ever loved. His father, Milah, her.
She shook her head, taking deep gulps of the cool spring air and tried to clear her head. She couldn't think about Rumple right now. For the first time, she was putting herself first. It went against her very nature, an uncomfortable prickling trailing up her spine at the thought.
She couldn't make Rumple change. He had to do it for himself. And to let him do that, she had to leave. This wasn't goodbye, it was temporary. She took a deep breath and stepped across the line.
Belle hadn't thought of Rumple again until that very morning. It turned out she didn't quite find the adventure she'd set out for. As soon as her foot crossed the line she was Lacey again. Lacey French who wanted nothing more than to skip town, who had no memory of what she'd been doing since toasting the end of the world with Mr. Gold in his shop one afternoon.
She couldn't put enough miles between herself and that freak show of a town.
But she'd only found her way as far as Portland by the time she ran out of gas, and there she had stayed. She'd managed to pawn the diamond she was wearing on her left ring finger for a pretty sum to get her started. Something in her had felt a pang of sadness at that, but she'd shrugged it off. She needed the cash.
Then she found a job bartending at a dive on the edge of town that afforded her small apartment and new clothes. She found the ones she'd brought with her didn't suit her. She'd jammed the rest of the boxes of belongings into a closet and forgotten about them. And if she sometimes felt like something vital was missing from her life, a weird tingling feeling like a phantom limb, she pushed it out of her mind and went along with her business.
But on one bright Saturday morning, Lacey had decided to clean her closet. Pulling out the box at the very back of her closet she'd rifled through it, finding it mostly filled with a collection of heavy, leather bound books she couldn't remember reading. But also inside the box was a cup, white with a blue flower and a chip in the rim.
Lacey recognized it at once. That same damn cup Gold was always pushing on her during her brief time with the man. Her first instinct was to throw it away, but instead she'd sat down on her bedroom floor and just stared at it in her hand. A moment later, she was Belle again.
She'd spent an hour sobbing on the floor, dry heaving, her stomach in knots. How long had she been gone? Over a year, almost two? For all that time she'd been languishing away, spending her nights tending bar and her days in general malaise. She'd missed two full years of her life, again. And this time she had no one to blame but herself. It wasn't Regina or Hook keeping her from her Rumple. She was the villain of their story now.
She had impulsively grabbed the cup, her box of books and the trunk full of her real clothes abandoning everything else in the apartment and packing up the car. It was only as she neared the end of her two-hour drive to Storybrooke that the nervousness in her stomach returned, forcing her to pull off on the side of the road, coughing up bile from her empty stomach.
How could she face him? How could she face any of them? She'd been gone for years. What if Rumple had moved on?
He had betrayed her trust, but she had abandoned him. She had done the one thing she had sworn, promised, made a vow never to do. She'd told Baelfire once that she loved all of his father, even the parts that belonged to the darkness. All just pretty words when it came down to it.
She would probably never see his soft brown eyes shining with love for her again, or hear him call her his darling Belle, his accent thickened by lust. She wouldn't blame him. But she had to face him, had to brave his censure and hatred. She had to apologize and tell him she still loved him, that she understood why he lied about the dagger. She wouldn't justify his actions, but she could understand them. He'd faced death, been beaten down physically and emotionally for a year. How could she have not expected him to backslide?
She glanced down at her naked left hand resting against the steering wheel and was wracked with guilty sobs again. He was her husband, and she'd failed him.
Taking deep calming breaths through her nose she composed herself enough to drive through the winding forest road.
And now she was here, and nothing was right.
She'd anticipated seeing the icy cold façade of Mr. Gold, armored up in his impeccable suit with matching pocket square. Instead, crouched before her was a shell of a man in tattered, dirty clothes.
She'd expected anger, white hot and perfectly justifiable. Instead she found acceptance, his arms clutching her to him as his tears wet her blouse. His anger would have been so much less heartbreaking.
"I'm sorry," he rasped out against her hair. "I'm so sorry, Belle. I failed you. I couldn't let go and I failed you."
Belle murmured soothing words, rubbing her hand against his back between his sharp shoulder blades. How much weight had he lost? He'd always been a slight man but now he was almost skeletal.
"I failed you too, Rumple," she murmured, lifting her hand to stroke through his matted hair, usually so soft and silky beneath her fingers. "I didn't mean to be gone so long. I didn't mean to leave you."
He pulled back from her, holding her at arms length as though he couldn't bear to break contact, that she would disappear. His calloused thumbs traced patterns against her upper arms as his face took on a confused expression.
"Why?" he coughed out. "Why did you come back?"
Belle could feel her tears starting again at the familiar words.
"I was always planning to," she smiled sadly. "I just got a little lost."
The beginnings of a smile split Rumple's face, his teeth standing out white against the brown and grey of his beard.
This thing between them, it had never been easy. But it was still alive, and it was worth fighting for.