And then everything changed…

For only one brief moment the room had been still as she looked Rumpelstiltskin, not the Dark One, over for the first time...and then the air sizzled. It was different than the tension she'd felt before, it was electric. So present she could taste it and swore she felt her hair begin to stand on end. It was magical. And no sooner had she realized what she was feeling did an odd ring fill her ears and then the room. It grew louder by the second and that wasn't the only thing growing. Light. The room was shining and glowing brighter than before and when she looked around for the source she found…the hat!

"Everybody step back!" Emma commanded at the same time she pushed herself away. Clearly she wasn't the only one to notice the change.

Rumple! She glanced down at the short distance between him and the hat and had a last minute thought to reach over and tug him away but it was probably useless. She couldn't drag him everywhere and the Apprentice, whoever he was, had placed a preservation spell on him. He was safe. But what about the rest of them in the room? How safe were they?

There wasn't time to question it.

Suddenly the hat changed again. The light coming from it died as the once bright stars that decorated it disappeared and a fluid black substance like tar pooled over the top of it. The golden container shook on the floor. Back and forth it quaked, knocking against the ground. No one spoke as they watched it as every second its motions became more and more violent. Something that sounded like screaming echoed from inside of it, then outside of it until it bounced off the walls all around the shop.

She glanced at the Apprentice, wondering if he understood, if he could stop it, or knew what was happening…but he looked just as stunned as she felt and took delicate steps away just like the rest of them had. That couldn't be a good thing.

A flash of light lit up the room and those ink black tendrils that she'd just seen coming off of Rumple's heart poured back out of the container. Her jaw dropped and suddenly she knew exactly what had happened before it even could.

They had failed to stop The Dark One. They had failed because the Darkness no longer had a home and that was a problem. It didn't just need a home it needed a host. Because at it's simplest it was a curse. Curses always needed to destroy not just something, but someone.

Without rhyme or reason that she could figure the blackness made its way around the shop and before she could scream at them to get out of the shop and run it changed direction and reached out for the old man.

She stared slack jawed, unable to do anything as the blackness surrounded him and then grew smaller and smaller until she realized that it hadn't just gone toward the Apprentice…it was going into him. It was forcing it's way into his body through his open mouth as his eyes stared blankly ahead in horror until…it was gone.

It felt like it had taken forever but if she'd blinked she would have missed it. The blackness was gone, but the room still didn't feel right, not like it ever did when her husband was possessed by it. And the Apprentice…he didn't look right either. Day to day there would never have been any signs that Rumpelstiltskin was anything other than human, he functioned normally despite his overwhelming magic but the man…his body was rigid as he shook nearly as uncontrollably as the container had. And his eyes! Even from her distance it was easy to see that he simply didn't have them anymore. Pupils, irises, cornea…it was all hidden beneath blackness. And it left her speechless. Was it possible to have a bad reaction to magic?

For a moment the world felt frozen as everyone simply stared at the Apprentice but then there was another burst of light and this one didn't fade to black. Emma. She'd cast a spell or maybe just administered a heavy dose of light magic into the man's gut, into…whatever he'd become. She didn't know what would happen, didn't know where the man had come from, who he was, what he'd done in Storybrooke before all of this or even his name…but she hoped he'd survive this. He was the one that had saved Rumple, he shouldn't have to pay the price. Emma was hitting him with enough light magic to light up the room! That had to be enough…didn't it?

Maybe not. When Emma was finished and the light dulled the man didn't look better or fixed, only weakened. His knees gave out and the next second the rest of his body followed suit as he fell to the floor motionless. For a moment she worried he was dead, that it was too much darkness for one old man to handle…but then his head hit the floor and the chaos began all over again.

Emma's magic appeared to have worked. The Apprentice's mouth opened and the strings of black sailed out of him all over again. She looked around, wondering who would be next, but instead of a person the Darkness chose to retreat out the mail slot in the front door leaving them all surprised and her confused. Had the magic really just fled?! Was it Emma's magic sparing him from a bad reaction? Or was it a rejection? Could it be both? Was that possible? Considering the fact that she was married to the Dark One she knew very little about the curse because it had protected itself well over the years from her and from her books, but she knew that no one had ever fought it off before. It couldn't be possible otherwise the Darkness wouldn't exist!

Then again…no one had ever tried to fight it off before. The Darkness was always taken in willingly in some way. It was a choice. Otherwise when she'd first kissed the unconscious man before her nothing would have happened. Was that why it hadn't stuck? Was it really the light magic within the Apprentice that had evicted the Darkness, or was it his refusal to host it? More importantly, what happened if it didn't find a new host

And what happened if it did?


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 10th 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 Camelot during 5A from the moment just before the Darkness possesses Emma in "Operation Mongoose Part 2" up to the moment that Emma and Killian cast the curse to return to Storybrooke in "Broken Heart".

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! It helps me know that I'm doing a decent job! Peace and Happy Reading!