Belle's head was pounding when she stepped out of the back room. The sunlight coming in through the windows felt like a cold knife going through her eyes and made her stomach churn. Will, sitting on the floor and cheerfully bent over his tablet, looked up at her. A weary part of her brain pushed through the exhaustion and pain to notice he was smiling as smugly as Henry when he'd set a new high score. She was too tired to ask. Anyway, she knew better. She'd had nightmares after Henry got her to play Five Nights at Freddy's. Then Will got a good look at her, and the smile vanished as he scrambled to his feet, looking worried and confused.
"Bad news?" he asked.
Belle tried to smile, ignoring her headache. "Good news," she said. "Better than I expected." She looked over at Professor Longneaux, who was looking through a worn book. "Your colleague, Professor Peregrin, has made progress already. He thinks he could have what we need in a week, maybe two."
Another week. Maybe two. And then to put together whatever solution the translation gave her. If there was one. If it was something she could do. Or could teach Regina or Emma or someone to do and if they did it right and if it didn't take magic ingredients she didn't have or couldn't make or had used up the day before she learned she needed it. . . .
I can't do this anymore, Belle thought. Her head hurt and she was so tired—and so tired of being tired.
"If it's good news, why are you so unhappy?" Will asked, still watching her anxiously.
"I'm just worn out. That's all," Belle said. It was true enough.
Professor Longneaux cleared her throat. "Do you have to wait for the translation? Mr. Scarlet, here, told me you thought you could use a fairy who'd been left behind. Can't you try that?"
Will had told Professor Longneaux about Astrid? The ache in Belle's head seemed to increase as she tried to puzzle out why. Who knew why Will Scarlet did anything?
She'd wondered that when she'd found him in her library, passed out and curled up around a page torn out of a children's book. She knew the answer now.
Maybe Will had a reason. Maybe it even made sense.
"She's transformed. The spell I was thinking of—" If she remembered correctly, if it did what she thought it did, if she could even make it work the way it was supposed to, "—it needs her in her human—fairy—She would need to be changed back, and I don't know how."
"Fairy dust can undo curses," Professor Longneaux said but she didn't sound hopeful.
Belle had to agree with her. "If this were a curse, that might work. But, it isn't. It's a spell. The mother superior would have used fairy dust to cast it. I don't think we could use it to change her back, not without understanding more about the spell. We could try true love's kiss, I suppose, but I think the shell—did Will explain what happened to her?—the shell will block it."
"I suppose." There was listlessness in her tone Belle recognized, the way someone sounded when all the choices seemed hopeless but you had to keep on trying.
But, the listlessness vanished. The professor's eyes sharpened, fastening on Belle. "True love's kiss? Sister Astrid has someone who could give her true love's kiss?"
"Leroy," Belle said, the answer startled out of her before she could stop and think whether or not she should tell the professor this.
"The Dwarf?" the professor asked, incredulous. "The drunk Dwarf? Grumpy?"
"He isn't a drunk anymore," Belle said. "Not since the curse broke. And . . . he was called Dreamy when he met Astrid. I knew him then. He only became Grumpy after he was convinced to send Astrid away. They told him Dwarves can't fall in love. And that Astrid would lose her powers if she went with him."
Grumpy had told her about it when she'd met him in Storybrooke. The Blue Fairy had told him Astrid could be a great fairy godmother.
If she'd really believed that, Belle thought, she wouldn't have frozen Astrid in glass.
"Reul Ghorm," the professor said, her voice thick with anger. "Oh, yes. She would tell him that." She swallowed back her rage. "Just let me know," she said. "If you find a way to help her. Even—even if it's one of those riddles, one of those things that seems impossible on the face of it. There's always a way around them. I know a bit about magic. I might be able to help. If you find something, anything, let me know."
It mattered to her, Astrid, freeing her. Belle had the feeling she'd sometimes had around Rumplestiltskin, that a word a statement—something that would have seemed simple and innocent from anyone else—echoed back through the dark, tangled roots of his long life.
There was a son. I lost him.
When she had pressed him for more, he had only been able to say, I lost him. There's nothing more to tell, really.
Except that he'd been alone, with no one to love and no one to love him. Except that the sole purpose of his very long life had been to find the son he'd lost and tell him he was sorry.
And he had found his son. And told him he was sorry. And proven it, giving up everything to save Baelfire from death—only to be forced to watch as his son gave up his life to save his papa and everyone else he loved.
Like father, like son, Belle thought.
In a moment of fear, Rumplestiltskin had let go of Bae and had spent centuries trying to atone. In another moment of fear, he had sent her away and then been tricked into thinking he had destroyed her.
In a moment of anger and pain, Belle had thrown him away. She had been more merciless than he had when he cast her out. He had been furious, too, thinking she'd betrayed him. She'd seen the ruin he made of the treasures in his hall. He hadn't come near her till his fury was spent, till he was safe. He may not have let himself believe her when she told him it wasn't a lie, wasn't a trick, that she truly did love him, but he'd heard her out.
All the things she hadn't done for him.
Belle thought of her father telling that man, Smee, to take her away, to send her over the town line and destroy her mind and memory. Even then, he'd given her a chance to speak. Brief as it had been, he'd asked if she had committed the crime he accused her of, of loving the beast. He'd even listened to her answer. He'd punished her only when it wasn't the one he wanted to hear.
She remembered her terror in the cart, hurtling through the darkness, scrambling for the key that might free her in time, only to have it slip through her desperate hands. If Rumple hadn't dragged the cart back with magic, would she have died out there? Chained in the dark, slowly dying of thirst and hunger?
Chains. Dark. Trapped.
Belle tried to calm her heart at the memory, tried to think of other things. But, there was a truth she couldn't escape. Her father had been a fairer judge than she was. He had given her the chance to speak in her defense, to explain.
He had been more merciful than she was. He seen the danger he was putting her in and had tried to protect her from it—imperfectly, inadequately. Belle still woke screaming some nights, feeling chains around her wrists, feeling death coming for her. But, her father had at least thought about the danger and tried to shield her from it.
She'd left Rumplestiltskin to die on the road. She'd walked away without a backward glance.
Belle remembered the tears streaming down her face, the pain as if her heart was breaking. Oh, there'd been a reason she hadn't looked back—but the reason was that she cared more about her pain than his. It would have hurt too much to look at him. It would have hurt too much to see what she had done.
Coward. Coward and tyrant and all the things she had sworn never to be.
I'm sorry.
Belle looked the professor in the eye. "If I find something, I'll let you know."
The professor nodded. "Thank you," she said. She sounded like a petitioner in Maurice's court, pleading for a life and having it spared. She said nothing more, just turned to the door and left.
"And don't forget to watch those movies," Will called after her. "Especially the second one. Trust me."
"Movies?" Belle said after the door closed behind the professor.
"Star Wars. Can you believe she's never seen Star Wars?"
X
Will was worried about Mrs. Gold. It was like she was wearing away from the inside. If this were a zombie movie, she'd be the bloke dying in front of everyone while nobody noticed—or not till she tried to eat their brains.
Not that he didn't think there were a few people who deserved to have their brains eaten. Except, the way they acted, he wasn't sure they had any.
And you do? You did what you needed. A rat dumb enough to escape a cat by jumping into the fox's mouth would know enough to walk away from this one.
Yeah, if there are any zombies, herd them over to Storybrooke. The town'll be safe. No brains here.
"There's some soup in back," he said. "Want me to fix you some? And maybe you should get some rest. Take a nap or something."
Mrs. Gold shook her head. "It's the middle of the day."
"So? I know people who won't be out of bed for at least another four hours. Life doesn't start till the sun goes down—and I'm talking party people, not vampires, before you ask."
"Are there any vampires in Storybrooke?"
"Sal Smith. He used to run the hospital's blood bank. Had to quite once the curse broke. Too tempting and he can't work day shifts anymore. He sticks to animal blood. Cows, mostly. Tom Clark carries it in the back of the frozen section, if you know where to look."
He looked at Mrs. Gold, hopeful as a puppy that had chased down a ball, brought it back to his master—mistress?—no, don't go there, his master—and was waiting for it to be thrown again.
But, Mrs. Gold didn't ask questions or decide he was joking or even just roll her eyes at him. Instead, she said, "Oh," and rubbed her temples.
"Let me get you that soup," he said. "And some Tylenol. You look like you could use some."
Mrs. Gold grimaced. "No, no Tylenol." She hesitated, maybe not even noticing the way she was rubbing her temples. "Soup," she said. "That might help. But, I can talk care of it."
"Yeah, but you don't have to. But, you should take something for that headache. You got some aspirin back here? If it's a migraine, you mix that with caffeine, and that'll kill it every time. Or that's what this one girl I used to know said. Now, if it was a hangover, I know some really good cures for that—"
"No," Mrs. Gold said. "No aspirin and no Tylenol. I'm fine. Really."
"You are not. You—" Will stopped.
Brain like a turtle, his father had once said. Slow and thick. But, give it enough time, and you get there in the end—just long after everyone else has gone home.
And too late to do any good, he thought, the blood draining from his face. Much too late.
He thought of Belle picking at her food, looking sick at the smell of eggs and ham. No aspirin. No Tylenol.
"You're pregnant." The words weren't even a whisper, as if the air itself were listening, ready to carry away secrets to the wrong people.
He thought of Leroy, Mrs. Gold's friend and in love with the daughter of the Mistress of All Evil (seriously, how mad had Maleficent been at her ex when she came up with that one?). Leroy had to tell Mrs. Gold every time he saw her how much better off she was without Gold. The sheriff figured Snottingham was a step up.
And people who weren't as friendly as the drunk Dwarf or the sheriff shoved her and spat at her and made demands and threats with no fear of anyone standing up for Rumplestiltskin's wife.
And after her stay here, her . . . association with you, no one would want her, of course.
Not words he'd spoken, not words he should know, not words he should ever—ever—admit to having heard.
But, if that was how they treated the Dark One's wife after she had (to hear them go on about what Rumplestiltskin had been up to) saved them all, he could only imagine what they would do to Rumplestiltskin's child, blood of his tainted blood and flesh of his poisoned flesh.
Except Mrs. Gold was shaking her head in denial. "I'm not—I don't—I couldn't even keep track of the months when I was in Regina's prison." It showed how shell-shocked he was that it took him a minute to understand what she was telling him. Not that it meant anything. Put anyone—male or female—in dark hole with rancid food and never enough of it, and all the body's rhythms went offline. It was just a lot more obvious what wasn't happening if the person was a woman. That meant squat for what was happening to her now. But, Mrs. Gold was already going on before he could get his thoughts organized enough to argue. "And I've always gotten sick to my stomach when I'm worried, when there's so much to do. During the Ogre War, I would get busy in the infirmary and never eat, not for an entire day—sometimes more when there were a lot of wounded."
"Not having an appetite while you're spending a day staring at gaping wounds is one thing. This is another. Did you—Have you at least taken a test? Or—or something?"
Belle snorted. "You mean have I walked into Clark's store and bought one? I might as well take out an ad on the front page of The Daily Mirror."
Yeah, the one thing Storybrooke had in common with any normal small town was the way gossip traveled. It made the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive look like a stupid, thickheaded turtle (which he was, he really was). "I'll get you one," he said. "Tom won't know it's for you."
She gave a small laugh. "Really? And who will he think it's for?"
"I could tell Tom I'm picking up a few things for Ruby—Joking! Just Joking! Not serious!" he added quickly, hands up defensively as she glared at him. "It won't be a problem. I promise. Tom won't even know I got it. I'll be in and out."
"You're going to steal from him?"
Well, that had been the idea. "No, I'll see he gets paid for it." Looks like he was going to be dropping more money on Clark's desk. Or something. For a moment, he thought about sending in Maleficent. See what Tom looked like when an eighty year old lady bought a pregnancy test.
Hey, this was Storybrooke. Maybe he'd figure she needed it. Weirder things had happened. But, even he couldn't think of much stupider things that could happen than taking a secret like that, gift-wrapping it, and handing it to the Lady Dragon with a bow on top.
Which meant he'd have to do this another way. Only, today he'd do it while the store was open. He'd just have to work out the details. "Trust me. He won't know I'm the one who got it. No one will know. I'll—I'll get you some soup. And crackers. Crackers are good. Eat a lot. Get those calories. And get some rest. And, then, I'll you the test from Tom's store. We'll find out what's going on."
Find out the truth. Then figure out what to do once he knew it.