Edge of a Knife


Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Universe or Once Upon a Time.


There is a woman standing in the middle of Storybrooke's Main Street. She has been standing there for at least two hours, and that's by Emma's watch, which has become less reliable as dusk falls. Now the hands are circling each other, like the rings of a planet or an atom, swinging in lazy circles. Emma considers the wristwatch for a moment, and then peels it away from her skin. The paleness of her wrist beneath the dirt and blood is shocking.

The curse is broken. At least that's what people keep telling her. And she's starting to believe it too. Archie is looking decidedly less human and Mary Margaret and James (and the thought that they're her parents is a place she is avoiding going anywhere near at the present time) are all over each other like teenagers. Mary Margaret is grinning, not her usual soft smile, and her cheekbones are smeared with dust.

People are celebrating in the near darkness. Emma turns with a jerk, heart pounding, at an explosion somewhere further down the street, but blue and yellow sparks light up the evening sky and she loosens the death grip on her sidearm. It's only fireworks. She wants to walk towards the happy shouts and singing, she wants to find Henry and hug him hard, feel the thud of his heart beneath his ribs. But she can't tear herself away. She won't, because there is one person in this town who doesn't have their happy ending anymore.

She tried to give Belle her jacket, but she just shrugged it away. She's only wearing a stained hospital gown, and this is Maine. She must be freezing. Emma crosses her arms across her chest, trying to hold in the warmth the wind is tearing from her.

"Belle." Emma says quietly, tries to inject her tone with confidence and calm. Above all calm, because she doesn't want to set off the screaming again. Seeing a person twist their body into that shape, bent and warped with sheer agony...it makes her feel sick.

Belle has her back to Emma but she turns her head very slightly, so Emma can see the shape of her ear, the line of her neck disappearing under her tangled hair. She's listening at least, which is something Emma can work with.

"Belle. We've got to go inside. You're going to get sick."

Belle laughs, and it's hollow and low and is coming from such a dark, dark place that Emma feels her feet shifting backwards. To fight or to run, she isn't sure.

"I am sick. There is no cure for what I have, Saviour. There is nothing."

She is still holding the knife. She's holding it by the blade, and the hilt is tucked up against her forearm like an extension of her body. Emma hasn't tried to take it off her. She knows that beneath Belle's heel there are the crushed remnants of a human heart. She stabbed it first, stabbed it again and again, and then threw it onto the street and brought her right foot down to crush it against the road.

It was vengeance for Mr Gold, Emma knows. It had frightened her as well, seeing his body beneath Regina's feet, his cane lying inches from his hand. She can't stop seeing that cane in her head, and remembering her thoughts in that blinding, horrific moment: He's dead then.

She doesn't quite understand it, what happened between Belle and Gold, the relationship between the knife and Regina's surge in power as she broke the streets beneath their feet, the all-pervasive whisper of that name. Rumplestiltskin.

Regina is dead, however, and Belle still holds the knife that killed her. It seems that Regina didn't trust anyone, that she buried her heart with all the others in her thrall beneath her father's crypt. Somehow, Belle found the way. And she advanced through the storm, and she made it stop. She made it all stop.

The least Emma can do is understand why.

But Belle stumbles finally, sets her feet in motion, and starts up the street that leads out of Storybrooke. Under the flickering streetlights, Emma can see the blood trickling down the knife as Belle grips it. She can also see the name engraved there. The B is oddly ornate, the word in script like flowing water.

Emma starts after her on stiff legs. Her knees won't seem to unlock. But she knows deep in her heart that something is very wrong about this picture. Belle, her shoulders straight, her face away from the fireworks. Heading into the darkness.

"Wait! Belle! You can't leave!"

And what Emma means that she doesn't want her to leave, not that she can't.

But Belle turns at long last, and her eyes reflect no light, black holes in her face.

"Just try and stop me, dearie." She hisses.

Emma stands on the cold street for a long time afterwards, straining her eyes towards where the other woman was swallowed up by the shadows. She doesn't try and follow. She has enough sense to know when something has been shattered beyond repair. All she would end up doing is cutting herself on the shards.


Author's Note: Dr Nicholas Rush plus Belle = universe-breaking awesomeness. Jumping on the bandwagon. :)

Concrit well received,

Taluliaka.