"Can I ask you something?" Belle asks me from her usual place at the counter.
She comes in everyday, always for dinner and sometimes breakfast too, always sitting in the same place at the counter and almost never speaks. It's hard to get her talking these days, not since she left the hospital a few months ago. I wonder what its like to be so quiet with a mind void of all your memories. Knowing you've lived an amount of years and not recalling anything from them. Although I can't let myself wonder to much, it hurts to think about how she doesn't know me. As adorable as Belle is, watching her taste iced tea for the first time a second time had been one of the hardest things I'd ever had to witness.
"Sure Belle, whats up?" I ask her lightly, keeping my usual upbeat demeanor when I'm around her.
I haven't tried to tell her who I am, who I am to her anyway. She knows my name and she's been coming here every day so I'm not a complete stranger to her anymore but I'm only the girl that works at the diner and that's hard to think about too.
Mary Margret doesn't understand why I don't just tell her, especially with Rumple trying to whisper in her ear at every chance he gets. Which is not often because David doesn't allow it, not since the last two times the ugly jerk was too persistent, frightening Belle. The girl is far from fragile but everyone has their limits. I just don't want her to remember me that way, I don't want her to think of our moments because I've told her we've shared them, I want her to know them. I wish for her to feel them, like I do.
"Are there a lot of wild animals around Storybrooke?"
The question throws me. I've learned not to get my hopes up that she'll ask about our past- about us, but I figured it would be a question about her memory. Belle has that look on her face that she gets when she is trying to piece something together. The look reserved for when she is in the middle of a plot twist in a gigantic fantasy novel or just before the climax of a good mystery when she's right at the brink of figuring it all out. Eyebrows scrunched together over beautiful blue eyes that seem far off in thought, bottom lip tucked neatly between her teeth, her fingertips tapping lightly against the counter top. Sometimes I can't look at her for to long without feeling like I need to excuse myself, slip away into a back room or the back ally for some air and I almost do that now but then I remember I'm supposed to be answering a question.
"Oh um…" I stumble for a moment, shaking my head a little to clear my thoughts. "I guess, like raccoon's and squirrels and things?" But she's shaking her head, releasing her lip and running her tongue over the small indent from her teeth.
"No, I mean something larger." Her words aren't really adding up and I'm tipping my head in confusion because why would Belle be asking this?
"You mean like… bears?" That's really all I can think of that might possibly be in the woods around Storybrooke though I've never seen one and if anyone knows anything about the woods around Storybrooke it's me.
"Wolves." Belle corrects with such conviction, the word dropping confidently from her lips and its at that moment that her eyes flicker to mine, focused and questioning. I'm not sure that I'm breathing.
My body has stiffened, eyes locked on hers, table rag hanging from my fingertips, my mind crashing through all the sudden possibilities. What is she really asking? What does she remember? Why else would she suddenly be asking me about wolves?
Belle must take my expression as disbelief, I imagine it looks a lot like that though probably bordering somewhere more on shock than anything else but she continues looking as if she needs to defend her statement.
"I've heard them, well one." Her face scrunches slightly, that same puzzled expression that tells me she is completely serious about this line of questioning. "I know it probably sounds a bit mad but I honestly do feel like its the same one." Her hands fall to her lap now, eyes casting bashfully down at them like she's nervous. "I hear it howling in the night."
I'm not sure why it takes me so long for this to strike me. For me to connect that she is specifically talking about me, even though I know I am the wolf, the only wolf but once it does I feel myself reflexively take in a long breath. "Why do you ask?"
My words are so low and cautious and I'm extremely surprised that she doesn't look up at me curiously, pinpointing the odd sound of guilt in my tone. Instead she keeps her head bowed, toying with her own fingers in her lap as she begins to speak.
"The wolf, they sound so… so…" Its like the words wont come to her or that she's unsure how to describe what she's thinking. I'm so enthralled in what she is saying that it once again shocks me when she finds my eyes with hers. Further shocking to find that they are swimming with tears, the sight alone makes my already racing heart clench tightly in my chest. I have to fight myself to not reach out to her, take her hands in mine. Not because I think she'd be affronted by the action but because I'm just not sure that I could handle it, touching her right now.
"They sound so sad." Belle finally finishes, the corners of her lips curving down into a slight frown but then she chuckles humorlessly. "I suppose I sound a little crazy." She shrugs, shaking her head in a certain defeat. "I suppose that's what happens when one's mind is mostly empty."
I'm having trouble keeping up, too concentrated on my breathing to think of anything more to say than. "You're not crazy." My voice stays miraculously solid, although low and a bit raspier than normal.
It seems to satisfy her enough and she gives me a small smile which I return immediately because when Belle smiles I smile, an automatic reaction that has been instilled in me for a long time.
"Honestly its rather odd because it only happens three nights out of the month, the oddest part that its always exactly three nights." And there is that puzzled look again. Belle is unbelievably smart, all the reading she's done and facts she used to have stored, even now when she doesn't remember any of that its still so obvious that she's brilliant. So much so that I already know what she is going to say before she says it, that she's already begun figuring it out. "It seems to have to do with the moon, I'm sure of it."
"I feel almost… connected with it, like they are calling to me." She blushes a little, looking away from me. "I can't believe I'm saying this but lately I find myself looking forward to hearing it, the howling. I wait for it before I fall asleep on the days of the moon, it comforts me… like its familiar" She chuckles nervously and bites her lip again, her eyebrows drawing back together.
I know that I'm smiling, its strange really because I'm also very close to breaking down into tears right here in the middle of the diner because Belle is talking about me. Not Ruby me but wolf me and she doesn't even know it. All that she is saying is so true and the reason behind it all is escaping her. It hurts more than her not knowing but then it also gives me hope, hope that she'll remember something, that she'll remember who that wolf is.
"Sounds like love." Comes a scruffy voice from down the other end of the counter. Leroy is sitting in his usual spot as well, just finishing off a burger, speaking to Belle but not really looking in our direction. His words make me falter and I grip the counter tightly to steady myself, to keep the high pitched wolf whine trapped in my chest, forcing myself to refocus on breathing.
Belle flushes, turning her head to look at him curiously although I don't miss the slight nod to her head and the expression that tells me she's thought of this already but that I'm sure is wishful thinking on my part.
"You know…" Leroy starts, turning to face her finally. "Someone told me once that love is hope, that it fuels our dreams." All of this sounds silly coming from Leroy of all people but Belle seems to be hanging on every word, listening carefully as he speaks. "That you need to be with the person you love to feel right." I'm completely confused at where he is getting all of this but I think that if I don't sit down soon my knee's might give out.
Belle takes in all his words, biting her lip as she thinks it over and then she is shaking her head, scoffing as she stands and tosses a few bills on the counter. "How can I be in love with a wolf?"
I can feel myself shattering, my insides twisting in such a painful way I think I might cry out. I'm completely aware that she doesn't understand, that she doesn't know but those are words that I have always feared I'd hear from her since the moment we met. I'm not looking at him but I can feel Leroy watching me from his place at the counter. I don't want to look at him, to see my pain reflected as pity in his eyes. If I do I wont be able to keep myself together.
"See you tomorrow Ruby?" Belle asks as she slings her bag over her shoulder, a heavy looking bag that I know is completely filled with books. She always says this, the promise of her presence the next day like she knows that I need it, that I need the reassurance.
Somehow I manage to nod, an "Of course." Slipping past my lips unbroken and she smiles at me. I immediately return the smile, its involuntary and it even sort of feels a little good. She gives me this look like she wants to ask me something, bottom lip tucking between her teeth, concern written in her eyes but she doesn't. Instead she smiles again and turns, walking out of the diner, the bell clanking against the top of the door.
As soon as she's gone, out the door, past the window and out of sight- I'm moving. Leroy calls my name once as I rush into the back, tossing the rag that had been crumpled up tightly in my fist and head for the back door.
Its wolf time so he must know where I'm headed, Granny will know too so I don't feel the need to stop and explain myself.
I thought the cool air hitting my lungs would make me feel better but somehow as soon as I pull it into my chest I begin choking. It isn't until I've reached the woods that I realize that I'm crying and as soon as my body transforms I am howling.
The howling happens every time, three times out of the month just like Belle had said but this time as I'm doing it, dashing through the woods as fast as my hind legs will propel me I know that I am heard and I take comfort in that. That my Belle hears me calling to her and although she may not yet remember me or my wolf she hears me and feels connected to that. Its small but its a step, a step in the right direction and it only makes the howling come that much louder.