Rumplestiltskin was dead, and in that moment Belle knew she would never be whole again. You made me stronger, he had said, as though she didn't need him to keep her strong in the face of everything else.

It wasn't until they were back in the Enchanted Forest and night was falling did she realize the true cost of his sacrifice to her. The curse would not be quiet just because her true love had died, and the return to their own land had restored it to full power and robbed her of the precious electricity that she had used to satiate it when he had been away.

"I need you to promise me something," she said to Neal as the sun had gone down.

"Sure," he had replied, his heart still hurting as much as hers was. "Anything. What's up?"

"I'm going to go down the road past the next turn," she said. "And I need you to promise you won't follow me until dawn or let anyone else go that way."

He had looked at her suspiciously but nodded with wide eyes that were trying to understand, and that's all she could have asked of him was a promise and an attempt to accept what she was going through. If left to its own devices, the curse would likely target either him or Robin and she didn't want to risk it. Not now, not ever. Her heart was too raw still, and she had to do whatever she could to preserve Rumple's son. He had sacrificed himself for them, and that would not be in vain.

She heard some commotion as she went down the road, people asking Neal what was happening but he kept his word. Nobody approached her that night, and at dawn she was able to fasten her cloak back around herself and return with her tear stained cheeks and whatever remained of her pride.

"I have to leave the group," she told Neal as they walked towards Regina's castle the next day. "I can't keep putting everyone in danger like this."

"Where will you go?" he sounded so concerned for her well-being, and she realized she was the closest thing he would have to a family in this place. With Emma and Henry safely in the other world, he had no one but her and perhaps Regina.

"I'll go back home to his castle," she replied, not daring to say the name Rumplestiltskin yet while the pain was still so fresh. "If there's any way to bring him back, I'll find the answer there."

And if not, the place would be easy enough to fortify to keep out interlopers while her curse slowly consumed her.

"I'll come with you," he said. "You shouldn't be alone."

"Alone is exactly how I should be," she said. "I'm a danger to everyone. Even your father didn't know how to keep the curse in check all the time, and I can't let you be hurt. You'll be safe with Regina."

And you'll both be grieving for the loss of all the same people, she thought. Perhaps in different ratios, but the grief would still be there all the same.

She stayed until nightfall before wandering off as she'd done the night before, but this time she kept walking until the pull to hunt was too strong before dancing on feet that were too light and graceful to belong to a woman with that much grief and loneliness in her chest. It was a physical pain unrelated to the curse itself, but exacerbated by it just the same as she slowly headed north.

On the fourth night alone, she had been about to begin her dance when she hear a call that pulled her forward into a clearing. She was frozen in place by the sight that met her eyes: another woman danced there already.

The stranger was clearly one of her kind though not the one she had met before. This vila wore the gauzy blue and white robes that the one who had kissed her had worn, and bore the same starlight-pale hair and skin. There was a soft light to the other woman that Belle also recognized. This was one of her own.

She practically fell into the clearing, startling the vila into stopping her dance. The fae looked at her with curious eyes before stepping forward.

"I've never seen one like you," she said, running her hands over Belle's face and hair as though she were inspecting her. "You're touched by our curse, but you're still living. Fascinating."

"I was bit by a vila," Belle explained. "Afterward I was like this."

"What a naughty trick to play," the vila said, taking Belle's hands and examining her fingers. "Most of my kind are cursed after death. Ones such as you are rare enough to be almost unheard of. Even to me."

The vila was spreading Belle's fingers apart and lightly squeezing the joints like she were some oddity to be uncovered studied. There was nothing sexual in the way the vila ran her fingers along the lines in Belle's palms, or any of her touches really, but it was the first time Belle had touched anyone since she had left the group and she was hungry for it.

"My name is Belle," she said at last, hoping that she wouldn't be rejected in this overture of friendship.

"I'm called Kaja," the vila said, turning her too-bright eyes back on Belle's face. "And you haven't been hunting, have you, darling?"

Belle shook her head quickly.

"No," she said. "I don't want to hurt anybody."

"Who said you had to hurt anyone?" Kaja asked her.

"The life energy," Belle said. "I could kill a man."

"You certainly could," Kaja replied. "But it's hardly necessary. You can bring luck, too, or simply leave them be after dancing."

"What?" Belle felt like her entire world had shifted suddenly.

"Oh, she really didn't teach you anything, did she?" Kaja said in her sweet voice. "What a naughty spirit. She must have been very mean or up to no good."

She had been trying to hurt Rumple. The revelation nearly floored Belle. She had been a weapon, a means to possibly destroy the man who had captured the vila and held her captive.

"Poor thing," Kaja said, petting Belle's face almost maternally. "Poor Belle. Come with me, darling, I'll show you."

Belle had danced all night with Kaja, feeling better than she had since Rumple had been lost to her. In the morning, Kaja had shown Belle how to fly when she wanted and not just when the power had reached the point that it was overflowing.

Belle stayed with the other vila almost a full week, dancing with men and feeding on their lust and their attention and leaving them unharmed at daybreak. In the day, Kaja would pet her hair and face and talk of things she thought Belle should know. Belle comforted herself for this delay by reminding herself that this would likely be her last chance to ever learn these things that she would need to know if she ever wanted to have a life with Rumplestiltskin that revolved around anything besides her insatiable sex drive. She could feed off his love if she wanted to, and the way he looked at her when he called her sweetheart.

Eventually, though, Belle could wait no longer. Kaja cried when she left, but had sent her off with kind words and a kiss on the cheek.

Vilas could not feed each other, Kaja had whispered into her ear on the first night they had danced together, or else they would never leave each other's company. For who could really love them besides one so similarly cursed?

That thought was the one that was rolling around in Belle's head as she climbed the stairs to Rumplestiltskin's tower all alone, and as the candle spoke to her of the vault off in the distance where a simple key could restore a Dark One. It was the same thought that buoyed her spirits as the bitter cold nipped her bare legs as she approached the thing with only a candlestick to guide her. If none but the cursed could love a vila because of her beauty, then what she had with Rumple was real and true in spite of the magic that coursed through both their veins. Death could not stop true love.

It was that single truth that almost made Belle ignore her intuition and turn the key before the candle insisted he had been in the library for hundreds of years.

"That library was built for me," Belle replied, turning to face Lumiere. "I know every book in it, every piece of furniture and every candlestick. It's barely been there thirty years."

He'd had no retort to that, and she had been about the flee when a voice behind her had screamed grab her and Belle turned to face the threat even as the candle sent out arms of flame to hold her in place.

A green woman was standing there, smiling wickedly at her as though she had won already.

"Now now, darling," the woman said, and the word felt almost like a slap after the way Kaja had held her and called her darling as she cried for her lost love. "Let's not leave so soon. I'd hate for you to miss the fun."

"You're not getting the dagger from me," Belle said. "I'm not letting you have him."

"Oh dear," the woman said with a false concern. "I'm afraid you think you have a choice. I need you to open the vault, and you're not leaving until you've done so."

It made no sense, surely a sorceress or a witch or whatever this strange woman was could open the vault on her own, unless…

"It will kill me, won't it?" Belle asked. "Magic always has a cost."

"Such a smart girl," the witch said. "A life for a life, darling. You know how it goes. And I'm afraid you haven't got much of a choice without help, powerless as you are."

Vilas were uncommon enough that even Rumplestiltskin hadn't known much of their powers when Belle had first taken the curse, but Belle had never let that stop her from researching. In most of the stories, they were simply beautiful women who danced at crossroads and must be avoided at all costs. Belle could have learned that much on her own, but there were darker stories if you knew where to look and had an intense interest in the subject. There were stories of war and of the ground shaking with the power of creatures long scorned as simply beautiful and frivolous things.

Belle had studied these tales, and once before she had been able to call those powers to herself. On a dark night when Belle had been killed, in her fear and rage Lacey had been able to gather magic she didn't even know she had and had lashed out, destroying the pirate and almost killing Rumplestiltskin in the process before she blacked out from the sheer force of what had come from her.

She had never again tried to call forth that ability, never wanted to harm someone enough to try. But these things, too, Kaja had whispered to her in the daylight. Belle needed control, Belle needed the use of all of her abilities, Belle needed to have this precious knowledge of her people.

The ground shook, and Belle remained standing.

The witch, who had so desperately underestimated her target, was still warm in the cold snow when the candle reminded Belle of the cost to open the vault. She pressed the key into a limp hand and pushed it into the lock, hoping against all hope it would work. Only one could live, and the witch was already gone no matter what Belle did at that juncture.

A mark burned into the corpse's hand, and the vault opened.

"Rumple," Belle whispered as her lover and her true love emerged from the black. He looked at her in disbelief, taking in the dead body and the fire and the fact that she had succeeded and he was here.

He said her name like a prayer and she rushed to him and he held her until the cold began to chill her bare legs again.

"What happened?" he asked. "How did you do all this?"

"It's a long story," she said, pressing her ear to his chest and hearing his heart beating strong and alive in his chest. He was here, she had woken him. "But your son is safe with Regina, and we have to get back to Storybrooke again."

"Oh, sweetheart," he breathed, kissing her at long last. "I've missed you."

"I missed you, too," she said. "And I have so much to tell you, but first we need to go home. I used a lot of curse energy to get you back."

He smiled in understanding and waved his hand, and a cloud of black and purple enveloped the two of them and the candlestick, and when it cleared everything would be all right.