Belle couldn't believe what she'd just witnessed. The Apprentice had split the Dark One from her husband and now they were laying on the floor next to each other apparently unconscious – the well dressed Mr. Gold persona that she'd married on one side and the sparkly Dark One she'd first fallen in love with both laying there on the floor while everyone looked on.
"So...do we need to kill it?" Emma said from behind her. "Or how do we handle this?"
"You can't kill the Dark One like that," Belle reminded her. "And we don't know what that would do to him."
The Apprentice had said that the two had to be split to save Rumple's life, but this still looked like Rumple. It was an awful disconnect to see the two of them lying there, prone and helpless.
"What about the dagger?" this was Snow White now. "We can use the dagger to kill it."
"Are you insane?" Regina replied before Belle had to. "Which one of you wants to be the new Dark One, because that's all that happens when you kill one."
"Can't we trap it?" Snow continued. "We did it in our old land, we can hold him here."
"No you didn't," Emma said. "Remember? We found that ink. He could have gotten out if he'd wanted to."
"Does he have squid ink here?" David was speaking to Belle now.
"I don't know," she said simply, although she very much did. She knew every item in this shop backwards and forwards. But she had to protect her husband and until she knew what was going on they were both her husband.
"We should at least try," Snow White whispered.
"Just leave," Belle snapped. "I'll take care of them both."
"But…" Emma said.
"Oh leave them alone," Regina interrupted. "If anything, separating the three of the will just make him cause more trouble when he wakes up."
Belle could hear more debate behind her, but she forced herself to ignore them until they finally left. She didn't care what they thought. This was some combination of her husband, and she needed to be here when he (they?) woke up.
Belle was running herself ragged. Rumplestiltskin and the Dark One had both been unconscious for the last few weeks, and she was no closer to figuring out how to wake them. She'd been through every book he owned and everything she could find in the library that seemed like it might be relevant. She wasn't sleeping well, and she wasn't eating much at all. She'd tried true loves kiss on both of them, and it hadn't worked. She was trying not to think too much about why it hadn't worked. She had some theories, but nothing she could really test until they were awake. She just needed them to be awake.
She'd managed to get Robin and David to help her move Rumple onto the cot in the back and pull the Dark One to lay next to him on the floor. After that, she had mostly been left alone with them and her thoughts.
The bell on the front door rang, but she didn't bother to check on it. Everyone knew where she was, and she didn't have any particular urge to be away from them.
"Belle?" she heard Regina's voice from the shop before the woman appeared at the doorway. "There you are."
"Where else would I be?"
Regina didn't look like she was sure whether Belle was being sarcastic or not, but Belle was too busy grieving to care much what they were going to want from her. It was always something.
"Here," Regina said, holding the Dark One dagger out towards Belle. "You take it."
They'd taken the dagger after the split, just in case it was needed to control the Dark One when the two awoke. She hadn't been sure if she'd get it back, or if it would even make a difference.
"Thank you," Belle said, reaching out and taking the dagger from Regina's hand. It always seemed like such a small thing to have so much power in it. There was a peculiar weight to the dagger, a heaviness to it that underscored how much magic it contained.
"Has there been any change?" Regina asked, examining the two men.
"No," Belle replied, trying not to let the sadness overwhelm her. "I don't know what to do."
"Well, I'm sure you'll think of something," Regina said at last before turning and walking away. She'd never been particularly good at handling emotions, and Belle didn't really begrudge her the awkward exit. She was really more comfortable being alone, in any event.
It was such an awful situation to be in. Their marriage had been over almost before it had begun, and now they were in this sort of limbo. She still loved him, but it was hard to love a man who refused to be honest with you. She glanced to the sparkly imp on the floor before turning her attention back to the man on the cot. Which was really her husband? Which had she fallen in love with?
Belle cradled the dagger in her hand. It was good Regina had given it to her. It had been her engagement token, and then it had been another lie. Maybe it was a good thing, though – she'd betrayed him with it the same way he'd betrayed her. She'd used the dagger against him to find the Snow Queen's cave. Perhaps…
She wrapped her fingers around the hilt and held the dagger aloft and cast her eyes towards the prone form of the imp.
"I command you, Dark One, awaken." she said, trying desperately not to get her hopes up. If this didn't work she had no idea how she'd go on. It was her very last hope.
Nothing happened, and Belle wasn't sure what to do but cry. She was debating trying it again when suddenly she realized the Dark One's hand was twitching. She almost dropped the dagger in her excitement, but at the last minute she remembered it was her one safeguard against this creature of pure darkness. It took the Dark One a few moments of various extremities before he was standing in front of her with a cruel smile on his face.
"Well, well, well," he said watching her peculiarly. "Look who it is. I wondered how long it would take one of you to figure that out."
"You'll have to forgive me," she replied evenly. "I haven't been the one to hold the dagger recently."
"So I'd noticed."
He was eyeing the dagger with twitching fingers and she pulled it closer on instinct.
"Can you wake him up?"
The Dark One was still watching her, but he gave a curt nod at her question.
"Then do it," she said. "Please."
"As you wish," he said with a wave of his hand.
Rumple was already beginning to stir by the time Belle was looking at him, and she had thrown her arms around him before he was even completely awake.
"Belle?" he said, sounding confused even as he wrapped his arms around her. "What happened?"
"I suppose that's my cue," the Dark One said before Belle could even answer, and she was forced back by Rumple sitting bolt upright on the cot and shoving her halfway behind him.
He was looking back and forth between Belle and the Dark One with shock and fear on his face.
"What's going on?" Rumple asked the room.
"She decided she likes me best," the Dark One said teasingly. "She just thought we should tell you before we ran off together."
"Oh, quiet, you," she said and the imp immediately went silent and glared at her.
"What's he doing here?" Rumple asked her.
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice separated him from you and you've both been asleep for days. I finally used the dagger to wake him and ask him to wake you."
"Oh," Rumple said, still looking confused. He was watching her with an expression in his eyes she'd never quite seen before and it made her want to put his head in her lap and comfort him.
"It will be alright," she said. "I've got the dagger, so he's under control."
"It's a little strange seeing him outside my head," Rumple said.
"Well it's a little strange being outside your head," the Dark One retorted sharply. "Although it is nice to be back to my handsome self. You all dress so oddly in this realm. Absolutely no sense of the dramatic."
He punctuated this with a hand motion that Belle remembered from the Dark Castle and she had to stifle a giggle at the memory.
Rumple now had a vaguely affronted look on his face and she wondered all at once if he was jealous of the curse. It had never occurred to Belle before to wonder how much of her husband had been the man and how much had been the creature before her.
"So dull," the Dark One huffed. "No wonder she likes me best."
"That's quite enough," Belle snapped in her very best lady of the manor voice. "Go find someplace quiet and stay out of trouble, thank you."
The Dark One glowered at her but nodded and took himself away in a puff of smoke.
"Sorry about him," Belle said, scooting away to a comfortable distance now that she had reassured herself that he was awake and alive and safe.
"So now what?"
"Now..." she said, trying to think of all the words she wanted to say to him. It had been a solid week of waiting by his bedside and trying to rouse him, and somehow in all that time she hadn't taken the time to decide what she wanted anymore.
"Wait," he said quickly. "Before you say anything I just need you to know that I'm sorry. I know I hurt you, and you'd be absolutely right not to forgive me. I just have to say that I'm sorry and I love you. Even if you never want to see me again, I still love you and I understand, but it you're willing to give me another chance I promise I won't ruin it this time."
Belle took a deep breath and tried to get her thoughts in order. She wasn't ready to give up on it. She wasn't ready to forgive him.
"I'm willing to try," she said at last, reaching out and putting her hand on his. "I feel like our entire life together has been one calamity after the other with no time at all to actually be a couple."
He nodded and his brown eyes were so hopeful and she just wasn't sure what to do.
"I want to go to counseling," she said at last. "I want to try to make this work, but I'm not sure I know how to do it by ourselves."
Rumplestiltskin wasn't sure what they were going to get out of this, but he was willing to give anything a try. Even if it included being in a counseling session with a cricket while a curse watched. Really, if it hadn't been for the curse deciding to join them he was fairly certain the whole thing would be going a lot better.
He was used to having the curse in his head, even though it had been quieter the last few decades, but having it sitting next to his wife and flirting with her was a different matter entirely.
"Do we really need to be here?" the curse whined. "He's a cricket!"
"You're free to go," Belle replied evenly, pulling her purse closer.
"No thank you, I'll stay with my dagger if it's all the same to you," the Dark One said, turning his attention towards her purse as well. "Unless, of course, you'd like to make a deal for it…"
"I can just command you to leave," she said, reaching into the purse threateningly.
The Dark One narrowed his eyes at her and retreated to the window with crossed arms so he could better petulantly glare at everyone else in the room. He probably shouldn't have been included in this, but neither one of them were sure what else to do with him.
"Sorry about that," Belle said. "Where were we?"
They'd been in the middle of discussing how she wasn't sure how to make their marriage work without losing herself in it.
"You were talking about how sick you are of your husband," the Dark One replied. "At least without me there."
"Oh go away," Belle shot back. "And stay out of trouble."
The Dark One hissed and vanished, and Rumplestiltskin let out a sigh of relief. It was strange having it outside of his head for once.
"I have a suggestion," Archie said, looking between Belle and Rumplestilstkin once the curse had been banished to wherever it was he had taken himself off to. "Why don't you two try reenacting the things that made you fall in love in the first place?"
Belle and Rumplestiltskin looked at each other as one, and he knew she was thinking the same thing he was – how on Earth were they supposed to reenact the Dark Castle? There were only so many libraries he could give her and he quite frankly still had no idea why she'd fallen in love with him in the first place. From the look on her face, she wasn't quite sure what that meant, either.
"I'm not sure that's going to be possible," Rumplestiltskin finally said. "The circumstances were rather...singular."
Archie seemed to think about this for a moment before replying.
"Of course, I'm not suggesting that you make any deals or anything like that," he said quickly. "But think about what brought you together in the first place and try to recreate those situations. Share each other's hobbies and interests. Go on dates. That sort of thing."
"I'm willing to try," Belle said, looking over towards Rumplestiltskin with a sweet smile and of course how could he be the one to doubt it would work?
"It sounds like a very good idea," Rumplestiltskin added quickly. "I can't wait to get started."
They were on a date. A real, actual, date. Rumplestiltskin wasn't sure who'd come up with this idea, but there they were eating dinner at Luigi's. Granny's would have probably been more sentimental, but there would have been more prying eyes. Belle was, of course, looking beautiful in a pale pink dress with gold sequins embellishing the waistline. She always took his breath away, and tonight was no different.
Conversation was stiff and awkward. There were so many topics that felt like landmines, and navigating them took all his effort. They'd defaulted to silly things like the weather ("pleasant") and the food ("very good"). It was actually almost a relief when the curse showed up and interrupted.
"Ready to give me back my dagger?" he asked, summoning a chair for himself at the table.
"Go away," Belle commanded, setting her hand on the purse she'd hidden it in. He looked over at Rumple and snarled before taking himself off in a puff of purple smoke.
Belle sighed and summoned the waiter for the check.
"This isn't working," she said simply, putting her head in her hands.
Rumplestiltskin felt his blood run cold at the thought that she was really done with him.
"No," he said quickly. "We can make it work. Stay, let's have another glass of wine and we can talk about it."
"I meant the date, not us," she said. "It isn't working because this isn't why I fell in love with you. Is it why you fell in love with me?"
He thought back on it. He'd fallen in love with her because she'd been herself. She'd been brave and intelligent and sweet, and she'd stood up to him. They hadn't been on proper dates until much, much later.
"It isn't," he admitted. "But what can we do now?"
They'd been going to work with each other for the better part of a week and it was helping a little bit. Conversation came so much easier when there was something else to focus on, and the Dark One had gotten bored after a few days of doing inventory and had agreed to a banishment to the top of the clock tower. There wasn't much trouble he could get into up there besides watching the townspeople, and he was under strict orders that he was only allowed to travel between the clock tower and wherever she was. They'd discussed locking him away someplace with the dagger, but Belle couldn't quite bring herself to do that to some portion of the man she fell in love with.
"Careful," Rumple said sharply, rushing to her side as well as he could and grabbing the orb she'd been holding. "That can do bad things if it breaks."
"I know what it does," she snapped. "I inventoried this entire shop, you know."
Rumple blinked at her quickly, and she was about to apologize to him when he suddenly spoke again.
"I'm just trying to keep you safe," he replied curtly. "If you'd prefer, next time I'll let you summon the roc. I'm sure it will take the fairies no time at all to rescue you once they remember that they have magic."
"Or maybe I'll just save myself like I've been doing since we met!"
"Yes and what a brilliant job you've done of it in the past with Regina and your pirate friend! Or did you forget about that?"
That was too far, and they both knew it. He was staring at her with wide eyes as though he couldn't quite believe he'd said it, either.
"You know what?" she said. "Forget it. I was wrong. This can't be fixed."
She turned to head for the door, but he followed her.
"Belle I'm sorry," he said pleadingly. "I didn't mean that."
"Yes you did!" she replied, turning back to face him. "You meant every word. At least don't lie to me."
"Do you really even want to know the truth?" he shot back. "Do you want to know how much I dislike your friends? Do you want to know every little thought that goes through my head?"
"I want to know you! I always have!"
They were both silent for a split second, both seeming to gather their thoughts before suddenly the tension snapped and they fell into a hard, bruising kiss. She felt like she was suffocating but she only wanted to breathe in Rumplestiltskin and he seemed equally eager to absorb all of her. It felt like coming to be kissing him, and she'd missed him so damn much while he had been gone. She'd never loved another person the way she loved Rumple, and she never thought she would again. They were tugging at each other's clothes and he had her pinned against the countertop when there was a loud crash from nearby which drew both their attention.
"Oops!" the Dark One said, giggling over the shattered remnants of some tchotchke or another that he'd apparently knocked off the shelf. "Don't stop on my account."
It was another few heartbeats before Rumple pulled away from her quickly, leaving the two of them staring at the curse in silence. The Dark One giggled again, and Belle couldn't take it anymore. She stormed out of the shop and headed to her library, making sure to lock the door before taking the dagger out of her purse.
"Dark One, I summon thee!"
"You rang?" he replied from behind her, and she spun to face him.
"You need to behave!" she told him. "You're not making this any easier!"
"Me?" he replied with a flamboyant wave of his hand. "I'm not the one who kicked him out, dearie."
"That...is none of your business," she said at last.
"Isn't it?" he asked. "We're the same person, he and I. You fell in love with both of us."
He wiggled his eyebrows at her and she had to resist the urge to throw something at his head. How dare he? She opened her mouth to deny it but no words came out right away. All her thoughts were fighting to come out all at once. He wasn't her husband! And she most certainly wasn't in love with a curse.
"I fell in love with Rumplestiltskin," she said at last. "Not you."
"Don't deny it," he taunted her. "I was there the whole time you've been together. I think our heroic little princess has a bit of a dark secret."
He said the last in that familiar little sing-song that she remembered from her early days with Rumple. Oh, gods.
"Go away," she commanded. She needed time to think about this.
"Fine," he said smugly. "But you know I'm right. You like me."
And just like that, he was gone.
It couldn't be true. It just couldn't. Could it? Belle wasn't evil. She'd always tried to see the best in people, she'd always taken the side of the downtrodden – she'd always been good and good girls didn't fall in love with curses.
But she had. That was the truth that kept coming back to her no matter how much she tried to deny it – she had fallen in love with the curse. And the man. But also the curse. It was different now, and she'd been struggling to try to figure out why. She loved Rumplestiltskin, but she also loved the Dark One. She'd fallen in love with him as the Dark One, and she'd always thought that she could separate those two things but maybe she'd been wrong.
Belle didn't dare to go back to the shop to face her husband, but soon enough she heard the door opening and the familiar thumping noise of his cane.
"Belle?" he called out and she stepped from between the stacks so he could see her.
"Hey," she said. "Sorry, I just needed some time."
"I think we both did."
"I sent the curse back up to the clock tower," she said for a lack of anything else to say. She couldn't actually admit what had transpired. It was too hard, too confusing.
"That's good," he replied. "But I've been thinking…"
"Yeah?"
"This isn't a permanent solution. Sooner or later, we have to figure out something to do with him. The townspeople aren't going to be particularly understanding of the whole thing, and sooner or later he's going to make a play for the dagger."
He was right. This definitely wasn't a long term strategy, and to be honest she wasn't entirely sure this entire thing wasn't a mind game. But if it was a mind game, it was a good one. He'd struck a nerve, and she wasn't sure where to go from there.
"You're right," she said. "I just don't know what to do with him."
"What if…" his voice trailed off and he was looking around as though he wasn't quite sure what to say. "What if we put him back?"
"What do you mean?"
"I miss it," he said softly. "I miss the power. I just feel...useless."
"No," she replied, going to hug him quickly. "You're not useless."
"Don't," he said. "Don't deny it. How long until the next monster comes to town? Or worse, the next time one of my enemies shows up. And then what do we do?"
"We'll find another way," she replied with more confidence than she felt. "You don't need to do this."
"It's the only thing that makes sense," he said. "I can control it."
She should say no. She should tell him absolutely not, and that it was a bad idea. And twenty minutes earlier, she would have. Now, though...he was right. He was right and she was a hypocrite.
"How would we even do it?" she asked.
"You can command him back with the dagger. It worked with waking us both up, I can't imagine it wouldn't work for this. Please, Belle."
There was a part of her that didn't want to go along with it, and wanted to insist that he was wrong and they had plenty of options. But if she was going to be completely honest with herself, mostly it was a part of her that wanted to want to feel that way. She really wanted the slightly dangerous man she'd fallen in love with to come back.
"Are you sure?" she said at last. "What about your heart?"
"The Apprentice cleared the darkness from it. I should have another few hundred years before it comes up again."
"Alright," she said. "But...before we do this, I want you to know something."
"Yeah?"
"I do love you, Rumplestiltskin. Light or dark, good or evil, I do love you. All of you. And after this is over, I want to try to make it work again. But just us this time. No curse running around and trying to interrupt. Just you and me and a car to New York."
"Of course," he replied. "Anything. If you want New York, we'll go to New York. And Paris. And London. And anywhere else you can think of."
"Okay," she replied, throwing herself into his arms and kissing him one last time as he was. "Then let's do this. Together."
"Together," he repeated, and somehow she knew that everything was going to be alright.