I don't own any characters from Once Upon a Time.

This is the last chapter in this story. I had a lot of fun writing it.

Thank you very much to everyone who read, favorited, and followed.

Chapter 20

Marina sought out her husband as soon as she walked in the front door of their elaborate mansion.

"We need to talk, Ren", she walked into the room with a determined look on her face, "I don't know if you are aware but I just saw Belle playing with Alexandra and kissing King Robert in front of her father's shop. Apparently, she and Rumplestilkin had a little talk and decided that they would not rekindle their relationship. Now, I want to know when you are going to stop pushing him and Lee apart and allow both of them to stop being miserable."

"You are certainly all fired up and ready for battle, aren't you?" Renik put down the paper he was reading and patted the cushion on the coach next to him. "I'll tell you right now that all of this happened because I made one mistake when I did not double check that the life I laid out for Leena in Storybrooke had not been trifled with," Renik faced his wife and did not even bother to hide the truth from her,

"Ren, what are you talking about, please tell me?" Marina reached for her husband.

"On the very last day before she was to cast the curse, Regina's carriage was stuck behind a merchant cargo line that Leena happened to be guarding. For once in her life, Regina chose this particular time to think instead of reacting. She didn't magic the wagons out of her way, she didn't kill them all for annoying her, she simply sat in her carriage and watched as the drivers and guards moved the wagons off the road to allow her to pass. This was when she saw Leena and decided that it would be entertaining to write a wife into Rumplestiltskin's life just in case it would make things more difficult for him when she pulled Belle out of her hat to surprise him. Remember, at this point she did not know that I already freed Belle and re-wrote her life. She left all the other details of Lee's life alone except one. My surprise when I realized that Leena was married to Rumplestilkin was equivalent to Regina's surprise at seeing Belle working at her father's shop. Now, at that time I did not see the marriage as that much of a problem. As far as I knew Leena and Rumplestilkin had never met and didn't know each other. They would simply wake up when the curse was broken and go their separate ways. Belle was now important to me since I knew that she would be the key to making sure Rumplestilkin had no reason to hold on to Leena. So, I offered Regina a compromise. I would let the marriage play out without interfering if she would leave Belle alone to go on about the life I set up for her. It was not until years later when I started to notice that something was very wrong because Lee and Gold were in love with each other. Now, Regina would never allow anyone to be happy during the curse so it could not have been she who wrote love into their relationship. It was as if Lee and Gold were not quite breaking the curse but more or less transcending it."

"True love", Marina spoke for the first time since she started following her husband's story.

"Yes, that was the first thing I thought of but I could not understand how it was possible. This was when I used what little magic I was able to bring into this world to probe Leena's mind."

"Ren!" Marina couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Please believe me when I say that I did not probe for details. That would test the bounds of even my capacity for withstanding psychological torture. Of course, I found out that they met in some tavern, spent a short time together, and that she has been in love with him ever since. I didn't need to probe Rumplestilkin's mind to know that he had been in love with her all that time too. After that I had one last desperate hope that somehow having Belle back would be enough for him to let Leena go. From what you are telling me that hope is down the drain now too."

"Ren, why are you trying so hard to keep them apart? Why does it matter if they are together?"

"Because, Marina, I know with one hundred percent certainty that Leena cannot live a life of isolation at the Dark Castle. Her mind, her training, and her heritage will not allow her to do it. She must be the dragon-rider she was born to be. That means that if they somehow stay together I will be stuck with Rumplestilkin yet again after all these years."

"Ren," and now there was a warning note in Marina's voice.

"No, no, no. It was bad enough that I had to endure everyone in the family thinking of him as their father or grandfather and dragging him to every family function and gathering we have ever had at the palace. Now, that wizard and his magic will be part of our everyday lives. I will be stuck cleaning up the messes he makes yet again for I don't know how many years to come. The thing with Nottingham was just a small example."

"Good," the word cut across Renik's speech, "Now, whatever your objections, it is much better to have Rumplestilkin in your life than have a dragon-rider who is miserable and thinks that she has nothing to live for after she and her dragon free the land from Ogres. You are going to lose her that way Renik. She will slip away into whichever dragon you bind her to and you will have to use magic to find her any time you want to speak to her because she is going to live in whatever cave her dragon chooses. It happened to other dragon-riders through the history of our people. You know that I am right."

"Now," Marina reached her had hand out to her husband and hugged him when he almost fell down next to her on the couch, "I love you, you know that, but you are going to have to figure out a way to get them back together."

"Oh, sweetheart. Rumplestilkin knows what he has to do to have a life with Leena. It's just a matter of time before he decides to do it."

And with those words the two stopped thinking about anyone else's love lives except their own.

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"Ren wanted me to drive you over to the woods to practice with Maleficient at night," Marina explained to Lee later that day as the two women drove down the dirt trail almost completely hidden by overhanging branches.

"This is ridiculous, it's way too dark to drive here, why couldn't Renik just transport us like he usually does," Leena has been firing one question after another at her friend for a few minutes now.

"He is a wizard, Lee. Who knows why he does what he does half the time. I learned a long time ago to just go with the flow."

This earned Marina a disgruntled humming noise from the passenger seat of her Lexus SUV.

"There," Marina finally brought the car to a stop by Gold's cabin in the woods, "He told me to drop you off and he and Maleficient will meet you inside?"

"Wait, you are not coming in?"

"No, I have the volunteer night shift at the animal shelter today. Besides, as mysterious as Ren was about this maybe he wants to talk to you alone about something."

"In Gold's cabin, Marina, what's going on?"

"Just go with the flow," Marina waved her hand out the window, as she backed up the car to turn and drive back to town.

Standing alone in the dark, Lee shook her head and started walking toward the door. A rustling sound from behind made her spin around, the adrenalin coursing through her body already preparing her for battle. But nothing could prepare her for the sight she faced. A blood red dragon even larger than Maleficient with black markings outlining the edges of its wings stood in front of her. Gasping and instinctively taking a few backward steps, the initial shock and fear began to wear off as the dragon made no move to attack or come closer to her. She stood stock still as she watched the dragon lower itself to the ground. It was then that the words "come to me, dragon-rider" echoed in her mind as if someone spoke them out loud. The voice was one she knew well and the swelling of her heart brought a prickle of tears to her eyes. She ran to the beast in front of her but instead of kneeling before him, as she had Maleficent, she traced his face with her hands and then wrapped her arms around as much of his neck as she could reach. The dragon extended its front leg toward her and Lee could not clamber up onto his back fast enough. She noticed that he already wore the small saddle that Maleficent had on her back earlier that day but this time when Lee sat on the dragons back her body seemed to melt into his to become one. When they took off into the air there was no need for them to practice hand-signals. They shared each other thoughts and after just a few minutes of flight even a difficult maneuver like an overhead turn was perfectly executed. What took years of training for a dragon and rider to achieve, the two of them now achieved effortlessly. They flew out over the ocean water and the dragon dragged his wing over the waves. A shower of water drops settled on their skin as their minds shared the pure joy of flight. They could have flown for minutes or hours but at some point they landed in the clearing outside the cabin and as soon as Lee hopped down on the ground and the dragon changed to its human form, their bodies once again demanded to be one. If Rumplestiltskin did not have a moment of clarity to transport them inside before catching Lee in his arms, they would not have been able to walk the few steps to the cabin at all.

Hours later, when they were finally able to let go of each other, he brushed the long hair back from her face.

"You, you would do this for me?" her hand caressed his check as Lee lay back against the pillows and looked deep into his eyes.

"You've been there for me every step of the way, throughout this whole curse and every minute after. You saved my son's life and brought him back to me. Now, it's time for me to stand by your side. If a dragon-rider is what you were meant and want to be, then that's exactly what you should do with me by your side every step of the way."

The kiss they shared entwined their souls and pledged them to each other in a bond that both gladly accepted.

The next day, they walked into Renik's mansion together. After one look at their faces, a resigned smile appeared on the wizard's face.

"I take it, Rumplestiltskin, that you went ahead and finally did what you always knew you had to do?

"Years ago, two dragons flew into battle against the ogres with the Farini dragon-rider. Two dragons will fly into battle with the Farini dragon-rider now." Rumplestiltskin looked over at Lee, took her hand and pulled her closer to him.

"We will rebuild our world together." Lee laced her fingers through his as she spoke to both men.

"Ah yes." Renik sat down and placed his hands on his knees. "Remember, Rumplestiltskin, what I told you all those year ago, before you married Alicia, when we didn't know if we would be able to contain the dark curse in your body to keep it from taking over her, when all our plans were nothing more than hopes, and we had no idea if any of them would work?"

It took a moment for Rumplestiltskin to think back to a time centuries ago to understand what the wizard was talking about.

"I believe you said something like, "here we go"."

"Well, here we go again…"

The End.