She had nowhere to go after she left Rumpelstiltskin's home and she didn't exactly have many options. It wasn't very late, but when she walked by Granny's, she saw that it was crowded and she didn't have the strength or the desire to wade through that mess, not tonight. She could have probably gone to the monastery to seek shelter, but it was a long walk and instead, the library had loomed and the warm lights coming from upstairs beckoned her.

It was the best option. She knew that it was the moment Rapunzel opened the apartment door, sighed in relief, and stepped forward to embrace her. Of course, Flynn was there, standing in the doorway behind her. He offered to go at the sight of her, but she insisted that he stay. She really was tired of interrupting their date nights and having him disappear when she arrived somewhere. In the end, that insistence was good too. Her stomach growled, and Flynn took to the kitchen, cooking her up a meal of grilled chicken, pasta, and vegetables while she and Rapunzel talked in the living room about where she'd been and what had happened.

She told Rapunzel the entire story. Some of it was not new to her, other bits were clearly not. She watched as Rapunzel went to the small and only closet in the apartment and retrieved-

"My bag!" she exclaimed looking it over. It was the one that she'd taken with her to the convent the day that she'd gone to the Underworld. She'd set it down in the chair and hadn't thought much of it since then, not even when she returned to Storybrooke. "But...how did you get it?" she questioned opening it up and looking through it. Everything was there. Remarkable! She would have thought with the way the convent had shaken that day half its contents would have been on the floor, and the other half would have still been in the Underworld.

"I worried when you didn't come back and called the convent," Rapunzel explained. "They wouldn't let me talk to anyone, and a few minutes later Mother Superior showed up at the library. She had your bag; I guess…she didn't' think I'd believe her if she didn't have it? She told me what happened."

She watched as Rapunzel took her seat once more and seemed to swallow back her emotion. Was she crying? "I waited every day for you to come back, for some sign that you were alright! When the others returned without you I began to fear the worst, but Mary Margaret told me not to worry, that you were in town. I didn't believe it! I thought maybe you were dead and just no one could remember! Why would everyone else come home but you! Even Rumpelstiltskin!"

So, he had been here? He'd come home before he'd taken her to the Temple of Morpheus. How on earth had he kept her presence so under wraps? Well, her sleeping form and everyone's fear of him wouldn't exactly have made it difficult.

She explained to Rapunzel everything that she could about her missing time. Everything. She told her about Zelena, what the cyclone she'd dealt with the night before she left truly meant. She told her what it was like when she realized where she was, and she told her about going to the library. Then she told her the best and worst part of her tale, easily the most complex.

"Pregnant?!" she blanched. There was not a sound in the entire apartment as the news settled in. She understood the shock. It was still hard for her to believe that one little misstep could result in something so grand as this. Frankly, she was still getting used to the idea of how happy she was to be pregnant and expecting a child. She couldn't expect others to-

The sound of the garbage disposal in the next room made both of them jump. Flynn was apparently putting half her dinner down the kitchen sink. "Babe? Babe!" The disposal kicked off the moment that she finally got his attention and he shrugged.

"I'm going to have to start over. The pasta had alcohol in it."

Rapunzel only shook her head. "Titi says it cooks out."

"Titi?" she questioned.

"My cousin, the one that cooks," she explained still looking at Flynn.

"Really? You sure, she's not wrong? You really want to take that chance?!" he didn't wait for an answer, just got right back to work.

"Leave him," Rapunzel commented turning back to her and leaning forward. "Babies make him nervous. He was supposed to be watching his sister when the witch took her away."

"I heard that!" Flynn shouted from the kitchen. He sounded light-hearted enough about it, but the look on Rapunzel's face was anything but light-hearted. She didn't know Flynn's entire story, just what she heard from Rapunzel. She knew that he had a sister who was still in school somewhat independent. Obviously, she had to be. Otherwise, Flynn wouldn't be able to spend the occasional night at the library with Rapunzel and most of his days as well. She knew of his sister; she knew that while she'd been in Camelot, it was his sister that brought Rapunzel and Flynn together. The girl had been held captive by a witch of some kind and Flynn had tried to rescue her by stealing one of her spell books in her back room. Rapunzel caught him, the two worked together, they'd been together ever since, and Flynn's sister had been living with him. But she'd never met the girl. And somehow she always knew not to press the subject. Possibly because of that?

She knew not to press the subject and so she didn't. She left that piece of information on the table and continued with her own tale. While Flynn cooked, she and Rapunzel spent the rest of the night filling each other in on what they knew. As it turned out telling the story was something they had to work together on, for neither of them had a full tale, but when they took what they both knew and put it together, they were able to figure the majority of it out.

She told Rapunzel about the deal Rumple made with Hades, that he was still the Dark One and about their futile attempts to save their child in the Underworld. Rapunzel kept silent, listening and thinking, just as she always did, as she told her the conclusion of the story that as she knew it. She had to hand it to the girl; she was a rock. No comments, good or bad, came from her mouth as she told her about her decision to enlist Hades true love to try and save her baby. And she didn't bat an eye at the mention of the sleeping curse that would preserve her for…

At the thought of time, she'd looked around the apartment then and found a calendar. It was difficult to figure the days out since she never slept while she was in the Underworld, but she eventually figured that she'd been there about three days before she'd put herself under the curse. So according to the calendar, so long as the "day-by-day" she kept was correct, then-

"A week!" she exclaimed. "I was in that room for a week?! It felt like an eternity."

Rapunzel nodded. "You were gone for nine days. Ten if you count the day you disappeared. Everyone came back four days ago. That's why I panicked when I still hadn't heard from you, especially with everything that happened once everyone was back!"

Flynn brought her food while Rapunzel told her about what happened to the others once they had returned. She told her about Hades and how he followed them back to Storybrooke, how he caused trouble and chaos before Zelena had ultimately killed him with some kind of crystal in order to save Regina. She also told her about how that crystal went missing after Hades death, that Killian had turned up alive and well, a gift of the gods, in Storybrooke after his defeat, with very little explanation to the people. It was not long after, that Regina and Emma had taken a trip to New York to get the crystal back from Henry when they realized he and his friend Violet had taken it with the intention of destroying all magic.

There was something missing to the tale, something she didn't understand. She couldn't quite fathom why Henry would suddenly do such a thing! He seemed to love magic! She couldn't understand why he'd want to take it away or why the turn around as so quick. She listened intently as she ate, at first just hoping to hear what it was that had caused this change in Henry, but then in utter disbelief of what had been started and done all in her name.

Rapunzel didn't know it, not at the time, but now that she knew that Belle had been under a sleeping curse she was able to put it all back together. Rumple had tried to use the crystal, in the clocktower, as a matter of fact, to perform some kind of great magic. She was willing to bet that it was to wake her up. He'd tried to use the crystal, but Henry had stolen it, taken it beyond Storybrooke, and Emma and Regina had followed after him, trying to save magic, while Rumple had followed, once again for reasons Rapunzel hadn't understood at the time, but now knew were far more menacing.

She just couldn't understand why he hadn't gone to her father! She couldn't understand why he felt the need to control everything! Was he trying to be her Savior? Force her to owe him her life and that of their child?

"Oh!" Rapunzel finally exclaimed, "I haven't even told you about the Land of Untold Stories yet!" And so she spoke on, telling her about how they had finally convinced Zelena to open a portal and send the people from Camelot back home. She was saddened to think that Merida was gone and that she didn't get the opportunity to say good-bye, but the way Rapunzel told her story, there was hardly time to feel anything other than shock. For not long after the people from Camelot disappeared did the portal backfire and carry Snow White, David, Killian, and Zelena through.

There were large chunks of the story missing. Rapunzel was not really in the main circle, she relied mostly on Granny and Archie for her information, and according to her a lot of what had happened when they weren't there only just began to resolve itself that day. All she really knew, in the end, was that Regina and Emma had gone to New York alone, but Henry, Snow, David, Zelena, and Killian had come back with them. Rumple had not returned. Not long after the town had been invaded by a man named Mr. Hyde and he'd brought with him his fair share of people from the Land of Untold Stories.

Their night concluded only when Rapunzel couldn't tell the tale without yawning every two minutes and Flynn insisted that though there was more to tell it could wait until morning.

She went to bed, just like the others, camping out on the couch in the living room, and listing the questions she had in her head. She wanted to know why Henry had done what he'd done? How the people from the Land of Untold Stories got here? She wanted to know who Hyde was and what he wanted? What had happened in the Land of Untold Stories? How had they gotten home and Rumple vanished?

Whew! What a long and convoluted story. Honestly, I cannot tell you how difficult this chapter was to write. So much stuff happened at the end of season five while Belle was asleep and wanted her to learn most of it, she needs to know most of it, but how to tell her was difficult and keeping it all straight...I think I watched those last episodes two or three times a piece to figure out what I could put in and what I couldn't, which details Rapunzel would know and which ones she wouldn't know. That being said, I know that the entire tale isn't here in this chapter and I know that there is one very big detail to the story that Rapunzel does know and is missing. Rest assured, I haven't forgotten anything and Belle will learn the entire tale. There is more coming in the next chapter, and even more will be revealed in the chapters that follow. I take great pride in the fact that I very rarely leave anything out. A&E forget, I fix it.

Big thank yous to Grace5231973, Fox24, Curly J, and Teresa Martin for reviewing. We have some very interesting opinions on the next season. Personally, not really looking forward to it. I think the ending of season six would have been perfect, and frankly knowing that it's still going on kinda ruined it for me. That being said, will I watch season seven when it comes out? The jury's still out for me. Friday Night isn't the best night for me to set aside time to watch TV, I'm usually busy doing other things. I do think I'll end up seeing season 7, but the question is when and how. Chances are that I'll watch the first episode, like many people, and then just wait until it's over to watch all of it at one time. "Rip the band-aid off" kind of thing, ya' know? Alas, we shall see! Peace and Happy Reading!