Chapter 6

The soft knock on Izzy's bedroom door was a welcome diversion for the nightmares that had plagued her sleep. "Izzy," came the hesitant voice, "are you awake?"

Isabelle nodded and then smiled to herself. She was sitting up in bed, had been since the last nightmare. She cleared her throat, "Yeah," she whispered.

Ruby pushed open the door, and stepped inside, closing it behind her. "I thought I heard you rustling around in here." She was adorable, gone where the short shorts and cropped tops, instead she was dressed in a Happy Bunny sleeper shirt with the phrase, 'You may bow before me now' printed in bold script. Her hair was braided into two low farmer pigtails, and on her feet were fluffy slippers shaped like wolf heads.

Against the headboard, Izzy nodded. "Yeah, couldn't sleep." She indicated the soggy mass of sweat soaked clothes at the foot of her bed, "Been having nightmares."

Ruby nodded and then walked over to the bed, shoving her best friend over and crawling under the covers. A long, perfect arm wrapped around Izzy's shoulder, and she leaned into the comforting embrace of her forever friend. "Wanna talk about it?"

She laughed self-depreciatingly, "No, not really."

"Well do it anyway. It'll take my mind off my own nightmares."

Izzy pulled back, looking up at Ruby's face, and for the first time, seeing the dark smudges under her eyes. That wasn't generally like Ruby, who slept like the dead. "What happened? Are you ok?"

Ruby nodded, "I'm fine. I'm more worried about you. Leroy was so out of line today, and then you wouldn't come down for dinner, and I saw you didn't eat the tray Gran brought up for you. Are the meds upsetting your stomach?"

Evasion was Ruby's favorite way of not talking about herself. Shifting out from under her friend's arm, Isabelle turned so she was sitting facing her heart sister. "My stomach is fine, I just wasn't hungry. Now spill."

Ruby sighed, and it was a testament to how much her dream was bothering her that she gave in without further protest. "I had that dream about Gran again."

Isabelle didn't hesitate, she leaned forward and pulled Ruby's head into her lap and immediately began running her fingers through her hair.

She felt the first tear soak through her pajama bottoms a moment later, though as always, Ruby's tears were silent. Isabelle remained silent as well, and eventually, Ruby's whisper soft voice told her tale. "This time, Gran shot my mom." Izzy wanted to cry for her, but instead leaned down and kissed her temple. Ruby just closed her eyes and continued, "The man came again, he pounded on the door and I ran and opened it, and there he was, holding up a severed head, and even though I couldn't see it, I knew it was my dad's head." She drew in a shaky breath. "Then we were in the kitchen, here in the house and my mom was screaming next too the fridge, and Gran pulled out a shotgun and just...she just..." Ruby couldn't continue, and Izzy knew she wouldn't. The dreams were always the same, Ruby would be standing next to her mom or dad, and through one means or another, Gran would kill them, right in front of her. Dr. Hopper told her once that her subconscious mind was trying to give her an outlet for her anger at her parent's horrible car accident which had claimed their lives and that of her unborn brother. And that seemed like a good explanation, because always after the dreams, Ruby would get herself into some kind of trouble, and she and Gran would have it out. Back in the old days, before Isabelle lived under the same roof, Ruby would come to spend the night at Izzy's house, insisting that she was never going to go back and live with her Granny. But Izzy and time would usually convince her within a couple of days, that it was time to go home, and Granny was always so worried about her.

Ruby never doubted the fact that her Gran loved her, but she couldn't help being bitter that it was Granny her parents had been going out to see.

Izzy brushed back her hair a few more times and then just laid her warm hand on the side of Ruby's neck. "I'm really, sorry you had the dream again, Ruby." The girl nodded, but said nothing. Izzy shifted, and Ruby sat up, "Come on, two person sleeping bag."

Ruby gave a half smile as she wiped away the tear tracks before scooting to her side of the bed and shimming down under the covers until both were cocooned in a mountain of blankets with just their heads and their four joined hands peeking out over the covers. This time, Ruby offered a real smile. "I love you, Izzy."

"I love you too, Ruby."

"Sisters forever?"

"Sister's forever, and ever, and ever!"

They giggled before Ruby pulled their hands to her lips and kissed Izzy's thumb. "We are way too old to be doing this sort of shit, you know that, right?"

Izzy shrugged, "Says who?"

The raven haired girl chuckled, "Um, probably everyone, but for sure Dr. Hopper, who would probably diagnose us as closet lesbians and recommend shaved heads instead of pills."

"Eww!" Isabelle cried softly, nuzzling her loose hair. "I'm never going to shave my head."

"Yeah, I'll eat my own cooking before I do that!" They laughed, like school girls, caught up in the giddy, light headed experience of too little sleep.

Eventually they both closed their eyes and just enjoyed the warmth of each other's company. It was a long time until Ruby broke the silent world they'd spontaneously created.

"So, did I see lover boy copping a feel this afternoon?" Izzy opened her eyes to see Ruby's beautiful blue ones searching her soul. This, it would seem, was what Ruby was really concerned about.

Isabelle was herself, still confused about the incident. She could still feel the warmth of his fingers against her skin, now nearly twelve hours later. She continued to stare into Ruby's beautiful blue eyes, and her voice came out stronger, more sure of herself than she thought it would, "He didn't push me away."

At this, Ruby's features became pinched; she loosened her hand from the knot in front of them and brushed back Izzy's hair. "Well, that's because he's not stupid. He knows I would have kicked his goblin ass all the way back to-"

"Stop." Izzy's voice came out exhausted from the fight that was again going to replay itself this night it seemed. Ruby hated Mr. Gold, no matter how many times Izzy tried to change her mind. "I guess, I guess I always imagined that if he ever saw them, he'd...I don't know, think I was...disgusting or something." Her words died out as she spoke them.

Across from her Ruby scoffed, the breath rustling that stubborn curl to fall across Izzy's forehead. "Don't be an idiot." She pushed the curl back into place. "I may not like him, no, I take that back, I definitely don't like him, find him creepy, and generally wish he'd get hit by falling space junk, but the guy's not stupid."

Smiling, Izzy rolled her eyes, "You always have such nice things to say, Ruby."

"Sorry, I said the nicest thing I could. I thought I did pretty well considering who we're talking about."

They both chuckled, knowing this was the only truce they'd ever have on the subject. It was no longer awkward, just stale as far as Isabelle was concerned. After a moment, Ruby sobered, "Seriously though, I'm glad for you at least; I know you were worried about that, you know, him seeing your scars."

Nodding, she looked back at their joined hands, and despite knowing no good could come of it, voiced her amazement anyway. "He, he pulled me closer, Ruby. He pulled me so close, and held me, and he smelled like cedar and dust, just like I remember from his shop."

Ruby shook her head, "I have no doubt he smelled like dust, that guy is a dinosaur." She smiled when Isabelle scoffed and rushed forward before Izzy could defend him. "Besides, like I've told you a hundred times, he's gay."

Isabelle rolled her eyes, "He's not gay."

Ruby smiled, knowing she'd taken the bait. "Look, we've known him forever, and I've never seen him with any other chica, so I think the facts speak pretty clearly for themselves. He probably touched soft skin instead of hairy skin and his brain just melted or something."

"His brain did not melt! I swear, you're terrible! And we don't know he hasn't had a...well a girlfriend before, I mean, well, he, I mean..." Slowly her voice died out as that familiar ache began in her chest. He didn't, he just couldn't, she'd have known, right? It hurt so bad to think that he might have someone else.

Ruby scoffed, "Please, we'd know, this town is way too small for us not to know. Unless he's built a tunnel under his house to the Mayor's and they're getting it on while Henry-"

Isabelle's hand shot out and covered that smiling mouth. "Number one, that's impossible, number two, that is the most disgusting mental image I have ever had in my life!"

"Oh come on! The way the two of them bicker and circle around each other, they're either ex-lovers or ex-spouses, or, well, I don't even know what else they could be, but whatever it is, it probably isn't legal in 49 out of 50 states...probably ok in Kentucky though...maybe Alabama."

They laughed, Izzy shoving her playfully in the shoulder, "They're not not kissing cousins."

"Ha! Like that's a bad thing! Come here Izzy, give me a smoochy, smooch!"

They giggled and laughed and fought under the comforting darkness, becoming children again, if just for a few stolen hours.

Snow White sat up in bed, the sound of her scream dying as she came awake. She clutched at her stomach, desperate to feel the round fullness of her unborn baby. But her stomach was flat, and she wrenched the covers away as she cried out.

"Snow! Snow, what's wrong?" James sat up beside her, taking her wrists into his hands, holding her as gently as he could while she fought him.

"Emma! Emma! Oh god, she killed her, she killed her!" The mourning keen filled the room with a mother's ultimate despair, and James could do little other than to gather her into his arms and rock her back and forth.

"No, Snow, no, she's alright, she's fine. Shhh, Emma is fine, she's fine."

Slowly, reality filtered back into her mind, filling the void and reminding her of where she was. With a lurch, she pulled away from her Prince and grabbed the phone, dialing the number she knew by heart.

"Snow?" James asked, but she had nothing more to spare for him now.

It rang for what seemed like forever.

At the click, her eyes widened in temporary fear, desperate to hear the voice on the other end, to remind herself that her last nightmare, unlike the one they now all lived in, was not real.

"This had better be unbelievably important or I'm going to arrest you!"

The sob caught in her throat, and the beautiful Snow White could do nothing more than bring her hand to her mouth. The tears came then, full and round, tears she had yet to shed for the years she'd lost, for the countless memories she would never know, and the painful truth that while her step-mother had not killed Emma, she had stolen a lifetime of precious moments that could never be returned.

"Mary Margaret?"

Not mom, or mommy, or mother, titles that should have been hers, titles she'd dreamed of having since her own mother's passing.

"Snow?" James tried again and this time she turned, burying her face into her husband's neck, unable to hold back the sound of her despair. For everything she'd lost because of one cruel woman's vengeance, Snow White princess of a forgotten world, cried.

Carefully, he took the phone from her hand and raised to his ear. "We'll call you back, Sweetheart, you're mom's just had a bad dream."

And for every memory she'd never have, for all the harsh, horrible moments she knew her daughter had lived through, for every simple word her husband had just spoken that stabbed at her heart, Snow White cried, and cried, until the sun broke the sky, and then she cried some more.

Jiminy Cricket awoke to find his hand outstretched before him in the darkness of his room. He sat up, realizing he was drenched in sweat and left the safety of his bed for the warm lights of his adjoining bathroom.

Cool water eased the sting behind his eyes as he splashed his face.

He'd been watching Gepetto as a boy, seeing him laughing in a field full of fireflies. Those had been some of his greatest memories, watching the young boy who's family he'd unwittingly stolen, allowed to be a child again in those fleeting moments. The boy had never complained, he worked hard, harder every day that he grew into a man, and Jiminy had been so happy for him when he'd found his beautiful bride.

But fate as been still cruel, and though they had tried for many years, a child was never conceived. At the time, as he listed to Gepetto comfort his crying wife, Jiminy had felt responsible, as if in his act to get away from his trickster family, he had cursed Gepetto yet again. And then when the dark eyed beauty had succumbed to the illness that plagued the village and Gepetto had buried her under the great oak tree, Jiminy had been right there beside him, crying with his unknowing friend.

But that had been so long ago, the pain should have subsided, but instead it intensified when he saw his old friend. The man was happy, as happy as he could be, but the longing was always there, the desire for a son, a hidden pain behind his eyes. It had that afternoon stopped Jiminy cold in the middle of the street, thinking that thought. How often had he begged the Blue Fairy to help his friend, and when finally the means for a son, even if only wooden, had been procured, the Curse had yet again stolen Gepetto's happiness.

Was it Jiminy, was he the living embodiment of some private curse forever damning Gepetto's happiness?

He'd gone to sleep that night with tears in his eyes, and awoken to a nightmare of an entirely different pain.

Isabelle and Ruby had been standing on the cliffs. He remembered that day so vividly. The wind had blown their hair around them as if trying to transform into wings. Ruby had Isabelle's hand in her own, so tightly, tethering the two of them together to forever be one being, one mind in the decision that was about to be made.

He'd cried out to them, calling Ruby back, crying out for Isabelle to come away from the edge, that they would all talk, that nothing could ever be this bad.

But in his mind, he hadn't been so sure. Isabelle was so badly broken, held together only by her self-created tether to Mr. Gold. And Ruby, beautiful, forever lost Ruby, with armor crafted by her growing sexuality. Both so different, and yet the same. The pain within themselves so great, too great to bear by one, so shared by both. Ruby, more than Isabelle depended on her friend, though he knew Isabelle didn't realize it. Now, with his memories restored, knowing what he did about Ruby about the horrors that plagued the young woman, he realized that her unhappy ending had begun long before they came to this place.

He watched as they talked, the wind stealing their words and forever burying them in the ether. Then he watched as Isabelle turned. She was looking for Mr. Gold, and as Jiminy had turned, he'd seen with dawning horror that this time, Mr. Gold had not been there.

The wind had brought him Isabelle's voice, "He's not there."

Beside her, Ruby nodded slowly, accepting her fate. "I can't do this without you, and you can't do this without him."

Isabelle turned to look at her friend and their eyes met. "I'm sorry, Ruby."

The other girl with her dark red lips, smiled softly, "It's ok. I'm tired too, Izzy."

He heard his voice shout out to them, desperate to reach them as he saw them step over the edge together. His hand before him, reaching, forever reaching, trying to save them, desperate to save someone.

Five am was a bitterly cold time in Storybrooke, but despite that, the lights were on in nearly every dwelling, attesting to the magic still floating in the air.

He was across the street, dressed in his usual attire, his long wool coat buttoned, his scarf hanging around his neck. Against the early morning hours he was a shadow of the building across from the diner, his eyes fixed on the light coming from her window.

Had his magic touched her too?

He cursed, anger filling him. Was he forever doomed to hurting her?

And then, as if summoned by his thoughts, he saw her go to the window. Stepping back into the retreating darkness, his eyes watched her, hungry and desperate at the same time.

He saw her turn her head away from the window, then a nod before the light extinguished behind her. She moved forward then, approaching the window before lifting the glass. The blue lace curtains billowed around her as she stepped forward, leaning out the window and looking down the street.

His breath caught in his chest to see her like this, so beautiful and alive, truly alive in the morning air. He watched her hair float around her in the current, saw her close her beautiful blue eyes as she drew in the morning's coolness. One delicate hand lifted and brushed back her auburn locks, frayed and disorganized from her slumber and the wind.

She was as he remembered her, and yet not.

She was too thin, with dark smudges under her eyes that told him of sleepless nights and long hours toiling. Her lips were chapped now, and he watched her chew on her bottom lip as she continued to stare down the street. Her hair was longer now, but limp, not full bodied and curly as he remembered it.

But perhaps the biggest change was not in her physical appearance. He saw her sigh, brushing her hair back yet again in a futile effort to tame it. She was harder now, he'd heard the edge in her voice when she'd spoken to the dwarf, and though she was still kind, her kindness was not so obviously given. But with him, where once she had been outspoken, challenging, and at times teasing and brave, she was now soft, delicate, and hesitant. Gone was his brazen beauty, who sought to tame the evil within the beast, she had been beaten and broken, lost to antiquity and reborn into an etherial creature delicate like the rose he had given her so long ago. As she was, this beautiful contradiction, she could not have stood up to him as she had so long ago, magic and power damned for the demands her heart forced upon her. Had he taken this girl, she would have withered under his gaze, broken into a weeping mess so early in her stay he would have locked her away in the dungeon and forgotten her.

Despite that though, she was his Belle. He saw her in the little things she did. The sigh she gave, the tick of her shoulder, the soft smile she leveled at him, and way she molded so perfectly against him when he'd held her. He was not disappointed at the loss of who she had been, this Belle was still his in every way, though different, the same. She was the girl he had first seen behind the rosebushes on her father's estate, the girl who had wanted to make a deal because he'd be in 'her spot'. He had see this vulnerability when the death tole had rung out across her little kingdom, when the little princess who had been leaning against his chest, listening to him read to her of a make believe world, had risen, tripping over her skirts, tears coming instantly to her eyes as she'd raced away from him, crying out for her mother who would never again read to her in 'her spot'.

This was the Belle who had been lost to her mother's untimely death, the delicate princess she might otherwise have become had fate not been so unbelievably cruel to her. She had stayed in his mind for years, her presence annoying him, but always there, until the opportunity had presented itself for him to save her village, and banish her from his mind. But fate had had other plans.

Now what had once been lost to him was again found. Fate had bound them so incredibly tight, and who was he, Rumplestiltskin, to dare deny fate.

But she deserved better.

He watched her turn, her eyes going towards the horizon of the slowly rising sun, the pink a rosy hew on her skin that was no longer there naturally.

She deserved a handsome prince on a white horse, with honor and dignity, not a cowardly old fool, who'd sold his soul and lost everything for a power that had not been worth what it had cost. She needed someone who could love her unconditionally, someone who knew her, knew she enjoyed strong female heroines in her books, liked five minute eggs, and loved the color yellow because it reminded her of her mother's hair. She deserved someone who would hold her close, wouldn't make her bake bread because she hated the feel of uncooked dough, who would know to carry the second bucket from the well because her left wrist was a touch weaker than her right due to a childhood riding accident.

She deserved better than Rumplestiltskin.

A smile, full and bright, broke across her face as she looked at the rising sun. With her eyes closes, the brilliance lit up each individual lash as it brushed her cheek. Her wild hair shone with forgotten luster, and brushed her face lovingly as it floated around her.

He would not lose her.

If he was not the man that deserved her, then he would become that man. Emptiness had carved into him from a lifetime of loss, and only she had filled him. True love's kiss could not be denied, nor ignored. A thousand suitors could call on her, some might even bring her joy, but true love was something none of them could give her. Could she have been happy without him, truly happy, he would have let her go, but a kiss that could give him back his soul was one that reminded him that he could not exist fully without her, nor she without him.

Fate had given him a second chance to protect her, to love her as she should have been loved by him in the beginning. He'd wasted away, mad from her loss, and she too, had dwindled until all that remained was the shell of the girl and the dim spark of her soul. Now he could see her, know her, love her, and he would.

But he had to be careful, he had to approach her slowly. He was not a man used to acts of heroic bravery, and even he knew he could not expect fate to help him recall the bravery of his youth. She would take time, time he had, time he would devote to her. He would not be the man he had become.

He would become the man she needed him to be.

Long after she closed the window and made her way downstairs to begin her day, he stood in the shadowed street and watched her. He had defied fate once, and it had cost her more than he could ever give her back. This time, he would follow fate, and claim the other half of his soul, the spark within her, and he would join it with his, until she glowed as she had that night by the spinning wheel, with a love in her eyes that could not be denied forever.