A/N: Thanks for all the feedback dear readers!

Disclaimer: "Once Upon a Time" is property of Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz, ABC, etc.


A Curious Thing

Being without a heart wasn't what Ruby would have imagined. When she thought about what Gold had done to her she was resentful but not furious. She could still feel emotions but was also able to scrutinize them from a removed perspective. It felt like control, but it was really Gold who could categorically control her.

"What happened to your face?" Whale was as tactful as ever when Ruby arrived at the hospital.

"I got into a fight."

"You? A fight?" He was tempted to chuckle but that would have come off as unprofessional. "With who?"

Ruby tried to tell him. She tried to say that Gold had crept up on her in the evening and ripped out her heart, but her vocal chords refused to move the way she wanted them to. Gold's order for her not to tell would stand as long as he had her heart. "It doesn't matter."

"It wasn't Belle, was it?" he inquired with a wry grin.

Why did people keep talking to her about Belle? All Ruby wanted was to get the stitches in her arm removed and leave. She glowered at him and Whale shrugged.

"Just thought I'd ask."

- Flashback -

Robin had concluded the briefing on how they were to sneak into Rumpelstiltskin's castle. He had shown them the path they would take on a map sketched from memory and explained what traps might lay. Everyone agreed to Robin's leading the way; Regina grudgingly so.

"Are you certain you don't want to come along?" Belle asked as she walked alongside Ruby down the corridor.

"Someone should be here to hold down the fort." Ruby made a slightly pained face. "Plus, I'm not ready to find out if Rumpelstiltskin will incinerate me when he finds out we're together."

"That would only happen if Zelena commanded him to do it."

"I feel so much better."

Belle stepped in front of Ruby and lightly placed one hand on her forearm and the other at her shirt placket. The difference in height between Rumpelstiltskin and Ruby meant that Belle needed to put forward a bit more effort to kiss Ruby, but it was always worth it. She softly touched their lips, "Better?" and smiled.

Ruby mirrored the gesture and dipped her head to Belle. "Better."

"Kindly take your tale as old as time somewhere else," Regina snapped as she strode past the pair and didn't look back.

Ruby gaped at the queen's receding form. "I can't believe she just said that."

"I can't believe you didn't hear her approaching," Belle remarked.

The truth was embarrassing and Ruby felt herself flush as she regarded the reason. "My attention was… focused elsewhere."

Belle blushed in turn and she leaned against Ruby, ignoring Regina's order.

- The Rabbit Hole -

Making time to comb for Henry's book in the pawn shop didn't cause Belle to be late for her appointment, but when she arrived at the pub the king was already waiting at a table flush with the wall across from the bar.

She summoned every scrap of civility her noble upbringing had ingrained in her and advanced. "Thank you for meeting me," she said upon reaching the table.

Spencer tilted his glass of brandy. "I'll admit I'm curious as to why the person who initiated the prevention of my plan to control the town's law enforcement would want to speak with me."

Belle sat across from him and respectfully sent away a nearing employee. For this she needed a clear head. "Granny said she and David found Ruby's hood in the trunk of your car. Where did you get the hood from?"

He released a darkly amused snort. "I think you know. Or am I right, and your cleverness has run out?"

The knot of anxiety in her chest unfurled like cold sinister tendrils reaching through her. "Why would he give it to you? He must have known it belonged to Ruby."

"Why does that man do anything? The deals he makes have to be worth his while. Collateral damage is inconsequential."

"People are not collateral damage."

The king tipped his glass to her – "You tell him that the next time you see him." – and then to his lips. "If you can."

- Flashback -

It was a somber day for the kingdom. After making the trip to see Glinda and learning only the strongest light magic could defeat Zelena, David had decided the dark curse must be cast in order to reach Emma – and Snow, of course, would be the one to destroy his heart.

Ruby was waiting out the casting of the curse with Belle in her chamber when she said, "Snow is stronger than I am."

Belle turned away from the evening view outside the window. She was wearing an indigo taffeta dress, trimmed in black with coal lacing down the front. Most of Belle's dresses were fastened from the front, affording her the ability to dress herself.

From the bed Ruby had been admiring Belle, perched on the windowsill with the moonlight lending an ethereal quality to her graceful form. "I wouldn't be able to do what she has to."

Belle regarded Ruby for a moment, and then left her place by the window to sit on the bed beside her. "You would, because you know it would save everyone."

She solemnly shook her head. "I would rather it was my heart."

This might have sounded like a romantic gesture in a sappy movie but Belle was more appalled by the resurgence of Ruby's martyr complex. "So you'd pass the burden of crushing the heart of the one I love most to me?"

Ruby's eyes alit with a mild wonder. She smiled at Belle, a little silly, a little playful. "You love me the most?"

It has always been easy for Belle to say she loved Rumpelstiltskin, but she had never paused to consider if she had loved him the most. She still cared for him, for who she had seen he could be; but more than Rumple, or her friends, or her father, there was Ruby. "Yes. Yes, of course I do."

Her smile grew and Ruby leaned forward, touching her forehead to Belle's. "And I love you the most," she softly declared before tilting her face to gently kiss her.

There was nothing so unusual about how Ruby was kissing her, but her lips felt warmer than normal and spread a heat down Belle's body which had been surfacing as of late. The feeling was stronger than those times in the past, and where those fleeting moments would end, at present Belle wished for it to continue.

She pushed herself up and rolled into Ruby's lap without breaking their connection while Ruby's hands travelled up her back. The dark curse would be arriving soon but its looming existence served as motivation rather than a deterrent. Gradually, Belle sat up and undid the lacing down her dress.

"Belle…"

Belle dove forward to kiss her again, and in the same instant reached for Ruby's hands, guiding them up to rest over her chest and the loosened lace. Belle sensed Ruby gasp against her lips, rewarding her initiative with a spark of delight. She pulled back, holding her gaze steady with Ruby's, and slowly let her hands fall to the side.

Ruby's hands were still on Belle. She could feel her heart beat, smell her skin, and see the burning reassurance of desire deep in her eyes. It was a hunger not like the wolf's, but one Ruby still understood – and was willing to satiate.

- Toll Bridge -

It was here during the first curse where Emma had sent Ruby to find evidence of what had happened to Kathryn. What she had uncovered was am image she could still see in her mind's eye, of a human heart stowed away in a box buried beneath the toll bridge. Thinking about it still unsettled her. It had been a heart of flesh and blood, the only kind people of this world ever saw from a body. Somehow Ruby could still feel a heartbeat if she placed a hand over her chest. Maybe it was part of the magic. It was like an artificial life.

A swishing sound disturbed the air. Ruby turned away from her view over the bridge and was startled to see her red hood hovering toward her like a ghost. There was something else in the air however, and she waited for her hood to reach her before snatching it from the air and revealing Belle behind it.

"You found me using magic. Hanging around Gold's must be rubbing off on you," said Ruby, not unkindly.

"I wanted to find you on my own, but I'm not a great tracker like you or Granny." She absently rubbed her hands together. "Or Snow." Her breath condensed into white puffs.

"And you walked all the way here in this weather?" Ruby met Belle the rest of the way and wrapped her in her hood. "Sometimes I don't know if you're crazy or devoted."

"I'll take devoted. You know how I feel about crazy."

"Right." Ruby's grin was rueful. "Sorry."

Belle's brow furrowed. "What happened here?" She reached for the contusion on Ruby's face but Ruby brushed the hand aside.

"A misunderstanding. Don't worry about it." She took in the crisp air and changed the topic. "So, what do you need me for?"

Her forgotten resolve returned with the hint of fret which came with divulging a secret. "This red hood… your red hood…" She gripped a handful of the red material. "Spencer acquired it from Rumple's shop."

Ruby's expression didn't change. "I know."

Belle stared at her with parted lips. "You… you know? How – Why haven't you said anything about it?"

"It didn't matter. It'd already happened. Besides, what would you have done if I'd told you?"

"I would have brought it up with Rumple."

Ruby smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. "Yeah, probably." She returned to looking out over the bridge and rested her arms on the balustrade. "You'd tell him what he did was wrong… he'd apologize… and you would forgive him."

Belle grimaced. "Don't make it sound like I'm a pushover."

"You're not a pushover, Belle. You're just too generous."

"That doesn't sound much better."

Ruby silently sighed and stepped away from the railing. "Come on. We should head back into town." She started to walk but then Belle blocked her path, pushing against her arms.

"What aren't you telling me? Is it about the case with Drew? Don't think I haven't noticed you haven't told me anything about it even though I was the one who prevented your arm from being shredded to pieces." Her tone was gradually becoming frantic but Ruby's retained a dry aloofness.

"It's not just that."

"Then what? What is it?" Her voice sounded loud in the air with all other noise absorbed by the falling snow.

"You don't know, Belle. You don't know what Gold has done, or what he's still doing. You say that he's good, that he's trying – well he's not trying hard enough."

"Zelena –"

"Stop – Belle. I get it, okay? No matter what anyone says you'll always take Gold's side. You will always, choose, him."

There was something worse than having her decisions made for her. It was people thinking they knew what her decisions were. Belle was aware this was her own fault for not confessing but it didn't stop her from whipping off Ruby's hood in a fury and flinging it at her. "You aren't a bit of an idiot, you are an idiot!"

A wave of warm air buffeted against them setting off a reel of missing memories. Some were shared between them, including the final remembrance of an impassioned entanglement and a cloud of purple magic with flashes of green cascading over them.

All was quiet on the toll bridge. The snow had stopped. They looked at one another not knowing how to feel. They should have been glad to some extent, of having their memories of the missing year and their time together. It wasn't possible though, not when Belle saw Ruby's stony face or heard what she said:

"This doesn't change anything."

She didn't understand. She was being trapped again. "How does it not change anything? Our memories –"

"That's all they are – memories, in the past." Ruby shook her head and finally feeling came through in her expression, but it was a shadow of the look she had when she had left Belle chained in the library. "I can't love, Belle. I can't love you."


A/N: We're coming close to the end!