Note: While this is set in the same, general universe as my other Stargate/Once crossovers, this one is slightly AU. I've had this idea for a while where Belle met the Ursini, but it didn't fit with later developments once the crew knew Rumple wasn't Rush. But, I still had to write it.

I. Ignorance

TJ didn't know how she would have made it through the journey on the seed ship without Belle. It had begun to hit her that she might never see her daughter again as the time passed for Carmen Rochelle's feeding and the pain in her breasts grew. Belle, talking to the Ursini named Attis-Anari, had gotten them privacy as she helped TJ deal with it.

"Rum will take care of her," Belle said. "Until we get back. He's got the sheep, now. There'll be milk for her till then."

"You're assuming we'll get back," TJ said.

She'd expected Belle to conjure up a Pollyanna-ish smile and promise her everything would be OK. Maybe she'd even do it well enough TJ would believe her. Instead, her eyes turned bleak. She smiled, but it was grim. "Oh, we'll get back all right," she told TJ. "I know Rum. Believe me. He'll catch up with us. I just feel sorry for the Ursini when he does."

TJ remembered Rush in the infirmary when the Lucians attacked. She hadn't seen what he'd done to the others but she'd heard stories. He'd cut a bloody path fighting to get to Belle. At the time, they'd put it down to something from the Ancients' chair, a power or entity from the ship that had crawled into Rush and let him do that. They'd also assumed—an assumption they'd tested, as far as they were able—the thing inside him was gone.

"You think he'll use the chair again?"

"I think . . . he'll do what he has to in order to get to us."

Belle spent a great deal of time talking to Attis-Anari after that. She told TJ some of it. It made the Ursini seem almost normal, almost human. Almost.

At least, they weren't alien monsters whose plans and goals TJ couldn't begin to guess at. There were still things about their captors that frightened Belle. She could see it in the other woman's eyes, though Belle didn't want to address it directly. She seemed to approach it in other ways, skirting around it, like when they discussed the oddness of Attis-Anari knowing a human language.

"It's strange, don't you think, that they would know Latin?" Belle said. "They've had some contact with Earth—or with some race that's been to Earth. They talk about myths—" She stopped abruptly. It wasn't the first time, but TJ had had enough of it.

"You're keeping secrets," TJ told her. "You think there's something that will upset me? More than being kidnapped by aliens I can't even talk to?"

"Not secrets," Belle said. "Just suspicions. I could be wrong."

"You could be right," TJ countered, getting tired of this.

"Yes," Belle said. "I could. If I am—if we get a chance to escape—any chance at all, I think we should take it."

TJ was about to ask her how she proposed they do that. Steal one of the Ursini sleeper pods and hope someone found them before it was too late? Then, she saw the look in Belle's eyes and wondered if she would say, yes, that's exactly what they should do. "You think it's that bad, what we're going into?" TJ forced a smile, trying to lighten the mood. "I thought Attis-Anari was your one-man fan club. One-Ursini." TJ was still figuring out Ursini body language, but there was no mistaking the worshipful way Attis-Anari looked at Belle.

"He is." There was no humor in Belle's voice, just deadly seriousness. "He's also dying. They . . . did something to him. Downloaded information directly into his mind. It's why he knows Latin and how to steer this ship."

"Ancient technology," TJ breathed. She tried not to think about what kind of people the Ursini were, the kind of people who casually murdered one of their own to complete a mission—or that Attis-Anari seemed to have casually accepted this. She focused on what else this meant. "His people must have something like the chair. Only, they're not Ancients or humans. That's why it kills them."

"Not exactly. Or, I don't think that's what it is. Attis is what they call the download or the—the thing that was put into Anari's mind. That's why he had the double name."

Double names. TJ hadn't noticed that. Belle said it so casually, assuming TJ had noticed it, too. She felt a twinge of jealousy over the gift for languages the other woman had. Back on Destiny, Belle had helped

Of course, the only reason Belle was getting to use this talent was that she was a prisoner, the same as TJ. Her jealousy ebbed. Her feelings of fear and frustration didn't. Stay calm, she reminded herself. Stay focused. Learn as much as you can about the current situation. "A 'thing'?" TJ asked. "You know how they do it?"

Belle hesitated. "I'm not sure. I think something was implanted in him. Maybe . . . something organic."

"Bio tech?"

"Maybe." Belle didn't look happy about whatever she was thinking. "Or maybe . . . some kind of symbiont. Or. . . . I don't know. Whatever it is, they're not compatible. It gives Attis-Anari some advantages—they'd be steering blind without him—but it's killing him. Him and the symbiont. Once they're joined, neither one will survive."

"That's why there's only one in this group?"

Belle shook her head. "There were twenty. They're part of a group of one hundred they sent out in sleeper pods—small ships, they sound like they weren't more than lifepods with the passenger in suspended animation. They're just the ones that made it this far."

Unless some of them were hiding, there were seven Ursini on the ship. That meant 93 dead or frozen forever in the darkness of space. "Why? Why did they need this ship so badly?"

"There's a war coming to their world," Belle said. "One they don't think they can win. They don't think the enemy could detect the sleeper pods the way they would their other technology, so they used them to get to this ship."

"It has weapons?" That made sense. Destiny had better weapons than anything they'd run into out here. Or it did on its good days. If the ship actually worked the way it was supposed to, it would be unstoppable.

But, Belle was shaking her head again. "Not weapons. Gates. They're going to try and evacuate as many as they can."

Gates. Whoever the enemy was, the Ursini figured they'd already lost. Everything they'd done—the lives they'd sacrificed just to get this ship—was only a desperate attempt to have retreat.

And they were taking Belle and TJ with them.

"What do they want us for?" A horrible thought struck TJ. "They don't think we can help them, do they? Belle, I barely understand how the light switches on Destiny work. There's no way I could help run a stargate."

"No, it's not that. The Ursini have encountered . . . something that looks human before. Except it's not."

"Ancients?" TJ said. Belle had seemed to think there was another explanation for Attis-Anari knowing Latin. But, if they'd seen something human—or something that looked human—what else could it be? "So, there are Ancients out here?" Ancients, the makers of Destiny and the stargates—the race who understood how to operate the stargates. Did the Ursini know how to contact them? Did they hope they'd help them escape their enemy?

And, if there were Ancients. . . . "Could they get us home?" TJ asked.

Belle looked pale and worried. She showed no sign of the hope TJ felt bubbling up inside her. "I . . . don't know. They looked like us. But, they're not. Attis-Anari says there's one on their world. She's very old and very weak. But, she understands the gates."

"An Ancient. She has to be. Belle, why didn't you tell me this?"

"Because, whoever she is, she made changes to Attis-Anari knowing they'd kill him. And Attis-Anari doesn't seem to think she'll have any problem with him kidnapping us. And what Attis-Anari says about what she did to him. . . . It doesn't sound like Ancient tech."

"You said he's trying to save his people. If he thinks we're Ancients, he must believe we can help him." And that could get ugly, TJ thought. People didn't like gods who failed them.

"I don't know," Belle said. "There were other races who looked like humans. Just . . . be careful. And be ready to run."

X

It was only a suspicion, Belle told herself. As one of Earth's writers said, "One's own belief—even so strong as to amount to knowledge—is not the same as proof." And the belief she had growing in her every time she spoke to Attis-Anari was close to nightmare.

There was only one thing she could do. Though she knew Rum would never forgive her for it, she took off her ring.

"Here," she told TJ. They were nearing the Ursini homeworld. Belle didn't have any more time to waste. "You have to wear this."

TJ stared at it, bemused. "Rings mean something to the Ursinis?"

"I have no idea. But, this ring—" There was no way to explain the magical protections Rum had put in it, so she didn't try. "It has some alien tech in it. It's a long story. My late husband collected odd things. This stone had stories told about it." Stories told to her by Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One. No need to tell TJ that, either. "They said it was magic, that it could keep the wearer safe. There have been some . . . strange things that happened to me. Or that didn't happen to me when they happened to everyone else. I let Rush take a look at it. He says it's not from Earth." And no reason to tell TJ it was from the Enchanted Forest, either. "He knows how to trace it. If we get separated, he'll find you if you have this on. Don't argue with me," she said before TJ had her mouth more than half-open to protect. "You have a baby back on Destiny who needs you. You have to get back to her."

Belle thought of Rum and everything he'd done to get back to Bae. He would understand why she had to do this. She knew he would. It just wouldn't make him any happier.

TJ didn't argue. Maybe she accepted Belle's arguments or maybe she saw it was no use—or maybe it was that they were coming out of FTL and there was no more time for arguments. They had reached the Ursini homeworld at last.