A/N: Thank you for the reviews, it made my day! Keep 'em coming. This chapter is a short one, so I'll see, if I have time to put up another one later tonight.

Chapter 10: Stranger Again

It's been a week since magic returned to Storybrooke. Everyone is confused except for Regina, who's looking like her evil self once again. She interrupted the town meeting last night just to take Henry back with her. Kidnapping him back the 'the castle', like force could ever hold that kid. Her magic is back and even Granny's crossbow, which have been safely kept in the back of a storage room during the curse and brought out the second the purple smoke lifted, couldn't touch her. She made the arrow into fire and threw it right back.

The diner is silent like the grave. The whole building feels stripped of sound and atmosphere, without Lacey's voice. Her laughter and the way she speaks. That foreign accent that I couldn't place at first and now feel like I can't live without.

She doesn't work here anymore. She came by to tell Granny, who in turn told me, avoiding all contact with me. Mr. Gold, or rather, Rumpelstiltskin the one and only dark wizard to cause all this misery, has given her the key to the library. There's a small apartment on top of it, which she now lives in. That is unless the Dark One has snatched her and chained her in the back room of his antique shop. I was told they were a thing before the curse. Either way I haven't caught a glimpse of her in several days. It's killing me. The whole world feels so quiet and barren without Lacey.

I guess I shouldn't even be calling her that anymore. Belle, that's her name now.

"You should be happy, girl, the curse is broken", Granny said the other night. I remember nodding vaguely at her and making her focus on the budget instead. I can't be happy. They say Emma did it; they all celebrate the savior finally breaking the awful curse. I wish she hadn't.

I've never seen Belle before in the Enchanted Forest, so she must have been from another kingdom.

I ask Snow, but she doesn't know.

"Belle, no, I don't know her. It's that girl who stayed with you and Granny, right?"

I nod. "Right." I want to tell her the whole story, but I can't find it in me to do it in the middle of the street. There isn't time right now with Regina acting out and Snow and David trying to take back some control over the situation. I can feel her restlessness. She's always had that, not unlike me, but it's uncontrollable at the moment. She has just gotten her daughter back. I don't want to burden her with my problems, let alone pour my heart out while she's so unfocused.

Snow shakes her head again. "I don't know, Red. Why do you ask?"

"No reason, just curios."

Snow smile. "Okay. Look, I've got to go, Charming said he was gathering the dwarfs and we're having a meeting. Listen, don't you want to come? You used to be a part of the council."

"Not today Snow, but keep me updated. I have a, um, thing to do."

Snow doesn't dig into 'the thing', which just proves how preoccupied she is.

Instead I show up at the AA meeting that night, hoping Lacey might be there.

I've been here my fair share of times in the past so I recognize a poor turnout, when I see one. Almost half the people are missing. Dr. Whale is sitting in there along with Nathan, Lacey's sponsor, as the only two I recognize. Of course I know where Leroy, or rather Grumpy, is.

"Nathan!" He looks up.

"Hi Ruby. What brings you here?"

"Have you seen Lacey? Or… Belle?"

To my disappointment he shakes his head.

"No I haven't. I was hoping she would come, she can't stop this early into the fight."

"So she hasn't been by at all?"

"No. Please tell her to come again? I'm sure she'll listen to you."

I smile at him and walk out. The smile fades as I turn my back, and I doubt that she would listen to me right now. If she had the slightest interest in talking to me she wouldn't disappear like this.

I feel the frustration and anger growing. How can she do this to me? Just vanish without a word, like the past four months means nothing! The wolf howls within me and I feel like growling out loud. I wasn't that off with my thoughts of inner monsters during the curse. Ruby didn't get her temper from strangers and now that I'm myself again with a real wolf inside of me, that temper feels even closer to the surface, luring just beneath the skin.

I walk out into the street and play – for the fifteenth time – with the thought of just going into Gold's shop and ask the Dark One to set her free. Or at least let me talk to her, demand an explanation.

The truth is I'm afraid. He is powerful beyond belief. He trained Regina, the Evil Queen, for god's sake. I can't match that.

All of a sudden she's there, three feet away from me. A whole palette of emotions washes over her face as we see each other, but too quickly to separate. She turns and starts to walk away.

"Lacey!" I call and run after her. I'm quicker than before, now that the wolf has awoken in me after twenty eight years of sleep. I catch up with her in a second and block her way. "Lacey, what the hell happened?"

"Please don't call me that", she says. For a moment I'm stunned into silence.

"Wh-what?"

"My name is Belle. That's who I am."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean that what happened between us, it… I can't Ruby, it doesn't fit anymore. I love Rum-"

"Don't you say that!" I snap in a high, shrill voice.

"It's true, Ruby. That's who I am. I'm really grateful for everything, but we have our memories back now. I have my father back and I recognize myself again. We're supposed to move on with our lives." I can't believe my own ears. Her voice is shaken too, it's subtle but it's there. Like it pains her to say these words, but why say them then? How can she stand there, talking like this? It's her voice, yet it sounds nothing like her.

"Lacey, please. Don't do this."

The woman in front of me, once again a stranger to me, meets my gaze and says: "Lacey doesn't exist, Ruby, you made her up."

The wolf inside me withers and howls as the panic and desperation turns into rage.

"I didn't make you up! I gave you a name when you asked me to, I invited you into my home, I dragged you out of The Rabbit Hole every night for three months! I helped you get sober and this is how you thank me? By ignoring me for a week? You kissed me! You dug feelings out of me that I didn't even know I had! And now you've run off to that evil man. You know what, your inner monster isn't drinking, it's him." The anger fades away and my voice is left small and fragile, when I add: "And if this is how you're gonna treat me then you're right, Lacey doesn't exist anymore."

I guess I hoped my outburst would bring Lacey's expression back into this woman's face, but she's fighting every human emotion it seems. She's almost cold.

"I'm sorry", she says and walk away before I can say anymore. I stand there, unable to move as I watch her disappear down the street that leads to Gold's shop. It feels like my throat is closing up with the blood that my racing heart seems to be frantically pumping out.