I do not own Once Upon a Time.

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"You're better off without him, Sister," Leroy told Belle as she sat at Granny's, staring at her iced tea. She'd thought of ordering something stronger. She'd thought of not ordering anything at all, just sitting there and staring at the water already in front of her. But, she could imagine Granny fussing over her and asking more questions, questions she didn't want to deal with. So, she ordered an iced tea and stared at it while she waited for a hamburger and fries.

Leroy had sat down next to her. She heard him talking and knew she was making responses.

"How are you doing?"

"Fine."

"You feeling OK?"

"I'm fine."

And on and on. All of her conversations were like this lately. She didn't really need to say much. She didn't really need to listen. A few rote responses, and they kept going on their own.

"You did what you had to." That was a popular one. So was, "You didn't have a choice."

"You're better off without him." Leroy might be the first one to say it, but she had seen it in the eyes of everyone she passed. She heard it in the things they said and the things they didn't say.

"You're better off."

She wanted to pick up the iced tea and throw it at him. She wanted to smash the glass and then go on to break every other glass and plate and anything she could get ahold of in the whole diner—maybe the whole town.

Instead, she sat there, looking at her tea. She waited till Leroy got up and left, telling her something—maybe to have a good day, maybe some promise that he'd be there for her, maybe just something about how this job was done and now he had to get back to whatever it was he really wanted to do. Belle didn't know and didn't care. She put down the money for the food and left before Granny came back with the burger.

There were other people who were harder to ignore. Keith, for example. He'd begun showing up when she least wanted to see him and couldn't take a hint and go away. She'd even started to discuss him with Emma one day.

"Emma, you know Keith Notting?"

"Oh, yeah," Emma said. "How's that working out?"

Belle had stared at her, not following. "Working out?"

"He likes you, doesn't he? Hook says he was scared to ask you out, but he told him to go for it. Seems like Keith tried, once, and Gold threatened to take him apart. I'm sorry, Belle," Emma added. "I didn't know Gold was like that. I should have but I didn't think—I thought you were in love. I didn't know."

Belle listened while Emma went on apologizing, beginning to understand. Emma thought Rumple had been isolating her, threatening anyone outside of a narrow few who tried to talk to her. She saw Keith's handsome face and well-trimmed hair and thought she saw a guy Belle would have wanted to go out with—if Rumple would let her.

No, she wanted to tell her, it wasn't like that. She thought about trying to explain what Keith was—a man who thought any woman he met must be for sale—and what Keith had thought Rumple was—a man who would sell them—sell her.

That wasn't long after Rumple was gone. Belle hadn't learned how things had changed. She'd tried to tell Emma, stumbling through an explanation. But, she was so tired, and no one seemed to hear what she was saying to them anymore. Emma had nodded and said something about what a jerk Gold had been and she should have listened to Hook, and Belle gave up.

That's how it was these days. She didn't need to say anything. People had conversations in their head with her, and the last thing they wanted was for her to interrupt with something that didn't fit what they knew she should say.

Belle remembered being locked in a cell with no one to speak to and no one to listen. She remembered when her memories were gone and all she had was a brief recollection of a man wielding fire. She had begged for answers. People had murmured lies about it being all in her head as they slid a needleful of drugs into her system, the easier to talk things over with her.

Nothing had really changed, she supposed. Belle was the third wheel in any conversation she tried to have, asking questions or giving answers no one really wanted to hear.

Leroy and Emma, at least, were sympathetic. Other people saw her reading through Rumple's books of magic and looked askance at her, whispering behind their hands.

"The Dark One's wife," she heard them whisper. "The Curse of Shattered Sight, they said it was that enchantress, but it wasn't. It was him. She knew all about it. . . ."

The wall of ice, the curse around the town, Cora, Regina, Tamara, Owen, Pan, all his fault, all his plotting. Much good it had done him.

Belle didn't argue with them, either.

At first, she'd hoped she'd find the way to release the fairies and anyone else trapped in the hat—find it quickly. She'd go through the books, find the solution, and then—and then—

And then the fairies could take over whatever magic problems people in Storybrooke had. Belle would put up the "closed" sign in the pawn shop door. She'd go back to the house she hadn't set foot in since that day. She'd through Rumple's things, give the fairies whatever bits of magic she thought they should have, put away the others somewhere safe, lock the doors, and. . . .

And do whatever needed to be done next.

Belle had asked Emma questions about her old job, about finding people. She'd thought she was being subtle, but Emma had given her a look. "You're not thinking of looking for him, are you?" she asked. "You'd have to leave the town to do it and you wouldn't be able to get back."

"I threw him out with nothing," Belle said. "I shouldn't have done that."

"Oh, please," Emma said. "Gold always lands on his feet. Or are you still scared of him? He's not coming back. You don't need to worry."

"I'm not scared of him," Belle said softly. "I was never scared of him."

Emma didn't seem to hear her. "And, even if he did come back, you've got friends, now. We'd take care of you. Speaking of, how are things with you and Keith? Hook told me Keith asked you out to the movies. You should have said yes. It's time to move on."

Movies? No, Keith had asked to come over to her house—Rumple's house. She wasn't sure which he'd wanted to paw over more, her or Gold's treasures. Keith had had some wild ideas about what he'd find there, some wild cross between Ali Baba's cave and a porn flick.

For once, her husband's reputation worked in her favor. She'd told him Rumple had put a spell on the place before he left, one that would transform anyone who set foot there without his permission. No, she didn't know how to take it off.

Belle thought he'd believed her. After all, she hadn't set foot in the house herself since she packed up a few clothes and brought them over to her small apartment over the library.

And, if he didn't believe her, she'd set the alarms before she left. Rumple had had a state of the art one installed after the one time someone had been foolish enough to try breaking into his home.

Belle couldn't stand to sleep in their bed, one half of it painfully empty. She couldn't bear to look at all the small mementos he'd gathered over the years. She only knew the stories of a few of them and the memories were still enough to make her heart ache. Even worse was imagining someone like Keith groping and fondling them. The one-time sheriff would see nothing, she thought, nothing but bits of wealth or power. He wouldn't see the cherished echoes of a long, lonely life, the life of a man who had lost so much. . . .

And Belle had taken away the little he had left.

She wondered if Emma would bother to come if the alarms went off or if she would just tell herself whatever was happening was "for the best," the last memories of Rumplestiltskin being swept away from the town. The good sheriff could forget he ever existed if she hadn't forgotten already.

People were angry with Belle. Or angry with Rumple. It came to the same thing. They blamed him for the Curse of Shattered Sight. They blamed him for bringing them back here from the Enchanted Forest, never mind that it had been Snow who did that. They blamed him for the things Zelena had done and the things that witch had made Rumplestiltskin do.

There'd been no food or water in the cage Zelena kept Rumple in. There hadn't even been light in the storm cellar she'd used in this world—not even a blanket. Winter had been coming on, Belle remembered. Her breath had already been turning into mist that day they had trekked across the frozen ground to before going down into that dank hole, so much colder than the field above. It had been midday. She could only imagine how cold it became at night.

There hadn't even been a blanket, she thought again. Not even straw to lie down on.

She'd sent him out into the world with nothing, not his winter coat, not even his cane.

She'd walked back to town, back to their house. She must have, not that she remembered it. What she remembered was sitting in their room, her feet aching, her head throbbing with a headache from hours of crying, looking at their empty bed. Belle remembered how tired she'd been. There'd been nothing in the world she'd wanted as badly as lying down and going to sleep.

But, she couldn't sleep there, not in that empty, lonely bed.

She'd started to gather things—clothes, money, Bae's blanket from when he was a baby, the ball he'd played with as a boy. Last of all, she took the chipped teacup, wrapping it carefully. She'd put them in the car and, then, she'd seen the messages on her phone. People wanted answers—people needed answers.

Belle had tried to give them. She'd made calls, she'd spoken with people face to face. Then, she'd gone home and looked at the car, wondering if she'd thought of everything. While she was thinking it over, her phone rang again. There'd been another crisis. Then, another.

It was always something. Children playing a stupid game had managed to cast a spell, and they'd needed Belle to undo it. Hook looking for his hand, that he swore Rumple had somewhere. Regina needing a magic root. Snow White needing a long lost hair.

And, then, Hook had remembered to tell them how the fairies had been trapped in the hat. They needed Belle to find a way to free them. No one else could.

Oh, there was Regina. But, powerful as the queen was, she had no mind for theory and the more complicated rules of magic. The few times Belle had tried to get help from her, the queen had wound up rolling her eyes and complaining about how Belle was as bad as Rumplestiltskin, going on about the useless details.

So, Belle struggled to find answers and to run a library and to deal with other problems as they came, one after the other. Every day seemed to bring a new ones, the kind they would have once taken to Rumple to fix. Now, they brought them to Belle. Sometimes, she found answers, sometimes, she didn't. Looking over her limited supplies of potions and magical ingredients, there were more and more that she simply had to turn away. Some problems, after all, could be solved without magic. Others could be lived with. Still others came at prices that were much, much too high. Belle never did find the hand Hook swore had to be in the shop somewhere, but she wouldn't have dared try to put it back on him even she did. A malicious corner of her mind had already decided to send him to Dr. Frankenstein if the hand ever did turn up.

There were people now who spat on the sidewalk as she walked by. Keith snarled at her and asked why she thought was too good for him when everyone knew all she was was the Dark One's whore.

Belle knew where Rumple's gun was kept in the store. She hadn't taken it home with her, not yet. Part of her didn't want to admit things might be that bad. Another part of her remembered Rumple telling her to take it, to keep it with her in case Hook came after her. Instead, she'd let Hook get ahold of it. He'd shot her in the back after she'd begged Rumple not to kill him.

Emma said he'd changed.

She'd heard Hook talking to some friends (Keith was in the group) telling them about how Rumple had almost killed him that day in the tower. But, the story was different than what happened. Somehow, in his version, Hook was the hero who'd known the Dark One was up to something. Belle was the hapless fool who would have been destroyed (along with the rest of the town) if Hook hadn't stepped in to save them.

Then, Hook had seen her. He'd given her a drunken smile and called out, "Hey, Mrs. Gold, come say hello to my friend, Keith. As a favor to me. You owe me one."

Belle had ducked quickly into Tom Clark's store, but Hook and Keith walked in after her. Belle had a brief vision of telling Tom some men were following her and Tom, all helpful, telling her she should let Hook look after her. Instead, she looked down an empty aisle and broke into a smile as if she'd seen her best friend. "Emma! There you are! I was looking all over for you!"

Hook and Keith turned around and left.

She wanted to get in the car (Rumple's car), drive away, and never come back.

She wanted to free the fairies and let them take over the job of picking and choosing who to help.

And, more than anything, she wanted to take Rumple's magic globe, to ask—to beg, if she had to—for Henry to give her the drop of blood that would show where his grandfather had gone.

"This is your fault," Hook told her when he and Charming dragged her away from the library. Students with homework they needed help to finish glared at her as she left. "If Rumple were here, he'd have this fixed already."

Belle went hot then cold. "Rumple's not here," she reminded him. "I sent him away."

"You didn't have to," he said. "You had the dagger. You could have controlled him."

"He's got a point," Charming said. "So long as you kept him on a leash, we could have really used his help."

Controlled him.

Used him.

Leashed him.

Like Zelena.

Belle swallowed. "The memories I have from Lacey," she said. "Made me think people in this world didn't like slavery." A lie. And not a lie. Lacey barely remembered anything from school. Belle wasn't sure if she knew there'd been a civil war in this country, much less what it had been fought over. But, Belle had learned enough on her own about this world to think it was a good point—and to remind Charming David Nolan believed it—maybe both sides of him believed it. If he would only listen to what she said instead of filling it in with what he thought she should say.

Hook rolled his eyes. "It's not slavery, it's the Dark One. Anyway, it doesn't matter. You sent him away."

There was this much that was good about that conversation, Belle thought afterwards. Some of the terrible pain at sending Rumple away had eased. A little. Just a little.

She'd been angry and hurt when she did it. She'd been horrified at what she'd walked in on. Rumple had been about to murder a man, to murder Hook, the man Emma loved (whatever Belle thought of him personally). He'd lied to her. He'd deceived her—deceived everyone—He'd hurt them—

But, sending Rumple away was better than keeping him here.

If she'd kept him here, the others would insist she use the dagger to control him.

No, she thought. They'd already insisted on that. When they let Regina take the dagger. When Regina had given it to Belle instead of Rumple. That had been implicit, hadn't it? They'd put Zelena in a cell with a bed—and blanket—and lights and food and water. So, she could be comfortable while they figured out what to do with her.

Meanwhile, Rumple had been saved from Zelena. They let him out of his cage. He was allowed to change and clean up. They were even happy for him.

So long as he stayed on his leash.

Whatever was happening to him in the outside world (she knew he was alive or his name would have faded from the dagger, but that was all she knew), no one was controlling him, no one was leashing him, making him a slave with less freedom than the lowest beast.

I only see the Beast. Belle winced as she remembered those words.

Free the fairies, she told herself. Let them do what they were trained to, give the help they needed to give. Then, she could leave. She could find Rumple and be done with this.

And if he wanted nothing to do with her?

He wouldn't. It wasn't just what she'd told him at the border, that he'd never given up power—or anything else—for her. It was that she spent her nights haunted by other memories—the memory of the look on Rumple's face as tried to fight Zelena's command and told her to run, the pain and fear as he handed her his gun and told her to stay safe while he hunted Hook, the way he'd held her when he'd seen her alive after believing she was dead for so long—those memories told her she'd been wrong.

Wrong, she thought. Maybe not to send him away. But, for the reasons she sent him away. For what she'd said when she sent him away. For what she'd believed. And what she hadn't believed.

Why would he want anything to do with her?

She'd at least give him the things she should have given him before, things to make living in this world easier, bearable.

And the things that meant more to him, no matter what he said. Belle picked up the blanket and the leather ball. She looked through the small collection of photos from Baelfire's brief time in Storybrooke. More than money—more than the cane he wouldn't have been able to walk without—these were the things she should have given him—the things that, somehow, someday, she would give him.

And, after that. . . .

She supposed it didn't really matter. There were millions of people in this land. She'd be just one more of them, a face in the crowd, invisible, unimportant.

No Keiths troubling her, no irate neighbors blaming her for the miracles she couldn't produce. Ignored, she thought. Invisible—Invisible because they didn't know her and she didn't matter, not because they looked right at her and couldn't even see her. If she had no one to talk to, at least she wouldn't have to sit and listen to people who thought they were talking to her while ignoring everything she had to say.

And no one telling her she was better off.