Chap 7.

The Shepard.


"Next time make sure I'm really dead." James declared as he killed his opponent.

Far away sat two clocked figures, "Honestly, the arrogance." Zelena complained.

"Oh come now dear, he's just a moron, and think of all the good were doing, not allowing him to reproduce and spread his stupidity on to future generations."

It only took a few minutes, and when James turned his back, Zelena waved her hand, and the brute's almost lifeless body came up and stabbed the prince. "Next time make sure He's really dead." She said laughing. "Oh wait, there won't be a next time."

"I don't think it's the same thing, James didn't have someone with magic there to help him recover." Rumple

"Well, he was still breathing, I'd say it counts." And they both looked on smiling as the guards rushed their friend's lifeless body away.


Storybroke.


Zelena and Belle were sitting at Granny's, having a friendly chat with Mary Margaret and Emma. "So he remembered, and then left you at the river." Zelena said trying to understand.

"Basically. Although I was the one that left him at the river." Mary Margret said.

"Ouch." Belle said. "Talk about horrifying inability to understand good timing."

"No kidding." Emma agreed.

"So what are you going to do now?" Zelena asked.

"I don't know." Mary said setting her head on the table in defeat. "He said that he loves me, he wants to be with me, he has intense feelings for me, and then he goes off and remembers, and then he decides that it's the right thing to do to go back to his wife. After he has left her, after he has told me he loves me, he has to remember every damn thing about his life before at the last stinking second." Mary then hits her head against the table in annoyance. "Ow."

"Well it can't be that bad, can it?" Belle said.

"I slept with Dr. Whale last night." Mary Margret then raised her head to see her three female companions looking at her with a mixture of disgust, shock, and whatever other emotion go with wide-eyed horror. "That bad?"

"Yeah." They all say in unison.

"How on earth did you manage that one?" Belle asked.

"He bought me a drink, listened to me rant, and Emma came home late last night so she wasn't there to tell me what a horrible idea it was." Mary Margret said, glaring slightly and Emma.

"Hey, don't give me. I was busy patrolling the streets of Storybrooke and finding out that Graham sleeps with Regina." Emma said.

"Ah, finally found that one how did we." Zelena said.

"What, is that some sort of town secret that everybody knows but me and Henry?"

"Well considering how smart Henry is, I wouldn't go that far. But apparently now everybody knows, except possibly Henry." Belle said.

"Ah heck." Emma said also hitting her head against the table. "Ow."

"Who want some good news?" Zelena asked. When no one answered she just continued on. "Well, it appears my period is two weeks late." And the whole group just sat up in wide-eyed amazement.

"You mean your..." Mary said.

"Your…" Emma said.

"As in…"

"That would mean… You are… Pregnant."

"Thank you Emma for that lovely observation, and yes I am, I think, I haven't actually gone and done the test yet. Which is actually one of the reasons I wanted to come and see you, Mary that is."

"Really. How can I help?"

"Well, if I were to go and buy a pregnancy test, Walter with one drink in him would tell the entire town. But you, a teacher buying a dozen pregnancy tests for the high school nurse or something wouldn't be strange at all, and if she doesn't accept them you could just return them with one or two missing telling Walter that she only needed one or two." Zelena said.

"But what happens if Whale sees me buying the pregnancy tests, or Regina and she thinks I win slept David and then Regina tells Katherine and then…" Zelena lifted up a hand to silence Mary Margaret.

"Let's think about that for a second, you're buying a pregnancy tests would raise suspicion, so would me buying a pregnancy test, so would anybody in my family buying a pregnancy test, could you imagine the rumors if any of the Gold girls went and bought a pregnancy test." Zelena said. "If I were to buy a dozen pregnancy tests it would also raise suspicion, but you binding a dozen pregnancy tests would not, obviously you are not going to use a dozen of them, and no one will think twice about helpful Mary Margaret going and doing a job for the school nurse. So what you say?"

"Okay." Mary Margret said, she then looked over at Belle was looking wide-eyed and using her fingers to try and count something. "Belle, is something wrong?"

"Zelena." Belle said nervously.

"Yes dear."

"I'm late by a week."

In the whole table really went quiet.


"Okay. Run this by me again." Emma said.

"Originally, Belle was a simple tutor for the children. A month into working for us Belle came to work late, something she'd never done before; later Gold was walking by an open bathroom door, and saw Belle looking into a mirror with the bruise on her arm. He demanded to know everything, and she told him how her alcoholic father was forcing her to marry the son of previous owner of the rabbit hole to pay off his bar tab. The son the night before had wanted a preview of their marriage night, Belle had refused, so he hit her and told her to think about what her answer should be the next night. Gold never let her go home that night, or any other night. She became our live in maid/tutor." Zelena said, slightly tearing up at the memory. "Months passed, and Belle slowly got to know my husband, she had become the first real friend he had had in many many years. She later confessed to me that she was beginning to develop feelings for him that were beyond professional or friendly, she said she couldn't help it, and then in tears begged me not to send her back to her father. She told me that she feared for her life if she was there, and I couldn't bring myself to be responsible if anything happened to a person my children looked at as a second mother, and the first friend my husband had had in so long, and the first friend I had had in a long time." Zelena then began laughing. "I told her, I told her that good friend share. The look on her face was amazing, and I was worried when we told Gold that he would die a heart attack, the look on his face was priceless. And so all those rumors about Gold hiring Belle for sex are a lie, but only the hiring part."

"And so the child is Gold's." Mary Margret said.

"Yes its Gold's. And I'd be very thankful if he didn't tell him."

"Why?" Emma asked.

"When Belle's father was drunk one night, he got mad and pushed her down the stairs. Nothing was really hurt, just a bit a mild damage to her ovaries. But because of the fall, the doctors said that something had happened to her immune system, making it up bit overactive, meaning that if she gets pregnant, the odds of her immune system trying to kill the fetus or the scar tissue interfering with it being able to latch on and begin growing are higher, and that could cause a…" Zelena couldn't even finish, afraid of saying word.

"She could lose the baby." Emma said, not bothering to hide her anger at the father.

"Yeah." Zelena said with her eyes downcast. "So you can understand, she needs to stay at home, probably in the medical room on immune system depressants to help lower the chances of her losing this child. And if Gold finds out about the child, he will immediately begin start getting attached, and if she loses it, well, I don't even think about what that might do to him, so can I trust you to keep this a secret?"

"Of course." Both Mary Margaret and Emma said in unison.

"Thank you, you've no idea how much that means to me, or the rest of us." Zelena said.

"Yeah, well what are friends for." Emma said.


Thank You Kiri Huo Ziv, xxxLeanniexxx, and Twyla Mercedes.