A/N: Well, here we are, the last chapter. Read at your own risk. Ha, I kid. XD. Thanks for reading and reviewing!
~8~8~
Icy sheets of cold driving rain plummeted to the earth in a gray silvery curtain, which veiled Storybrooke in it morose sheen. The hard, fat drops rapped incessantly against the fogged, rose stained-glass windows of Annabelle French's Storybrooke law firm.
Annabelle French, Attorney at Law, private owner of half the town and business' of the little back woods hamlet watched the tears of water patter and slowly slide down the steamed, misted pane.
Annabelle was her name in this land without magic, but most whom she dealt with simply called her the heartless shrew. That moniker was only behind her back of course; she had far too much power to be so blatantly insulted to her face. Even the Madame Mayor knew not to cross her too often, for even in this world, the Dark One was not to be taken lightly or toyed with like a pretty imbecile.
Using the sleeve of her frightfully drab, navy blue business suit, the lawyer, wiped a part of the fog clear of the glass to peer outside.
What few people were caught in the frigid deluge, were running about frantically for shelter to escape the rather, suspicious and sudden downpour.
Briefcases, paper, and even boxed lunches were over head of those eagerly trying to weed out shelter. They ran back into Granny's little diner across the street, a workshop owned by the friendly Marco, or a series of other family friendly business to laugh and chat and wait out the rain, but none dare even began to venture to open the door to her establishment. One does not knowingly wander into a dragon's lair.
As if reading her thoughts, the solid black cat languorously reclining on the adjacent window sill meowed a lazy comment and closed its odd orange eyes once more to dive back into the realm of sleep.
"Yes, I know you wouldn't mind going into a dragon's lair, Brimstone, but keep in mind you are not a horse any longer." Belle chuckled mildly at the teasing reminder.
Brimstone, now the black tabby, shrugged carelessly in reply and hopped down, with his long sinuous tail slithering in the air; wandering to go sleep somewhere where water wasn't so frightfully close.
Belle could only smile fondly at the still prissy animal, no matter what form, and turned back to the window.
Very soon the little patch of sidewalk and street she could see was all but deserted of human life, save for one pitiful wretched thing that could only be loosely termed a living soul.
A man bundled up in a pathetic series of patched jackets of all hues and makes profusely strewn with holes sat shivering by a damp cardboard box that was turning into pulpy mush as the buckets of rain besieged the earth.
His thick, tangled, and matted beard covered most of his dirty face, save for his mud brown eyes; one of which was misty and milked over and always rolling about in his head like a foggy brown marble in his eye socket.
Deep, thick, and pinkish raised scratches and scars viciously and profusely trailed and crisscrossed his battered face, and the crooked nose perched at the very center of the messily marred human flesh had been broken at least twice so that it seemed akin to a jagged precipice of a cliff ledge rather than a nose.
Just by looking at him it was obvious he had once been very fit and strong and agile with muscles and sinew. He might have even been handsome at one point, but that had all deteriorate and fallen into phthisis thanks to hunger, leaving him a flimsy skeleton with flabby, disease mottled skin stretched taunt over a rack of bones like some macabre drum.
He was being eaten away on the inside, by three different types of incurable diseases, which constantly fevered his body with torment and racking, blood flecked coughs.
Despite all this, the most prominent injury on his malignant body was his right leg; twisted and mangled, as though a bear had torn it to shreds long ago.
The bone contorted and healed in a painfully awkward angle. The muscles burned and ached, every time he dare move the maimed appendage or his once shattered and never fully mended knee.
Many people only knew him as Basil the insane cripple; the homeless so utterly deplorable in his attitude and actions that not even the kindly nuns would not take him in. Yes, though this world dubbed him Basil, Annabelle knew him by the hateful name of Baelfire, the murderer of Wren and Rumpelstiltskin.
As though feeling the burning hatred of the attorneys cerulean eyes locked savagely upon him, the vagabond turned his head warily in the direction of her business.
Seeing the intense cobalt eyes staring back at him, the cripple wasted no time in abandoning his sorry remnants of a box he had fished out of granny's dumpster and scrambled away at a tortuous hop limp, which sent him often crashing into the mud washed earth.
He knew how much Annabelle French hated him, though he never knew why. All he could comprehend was that she never resisited a chance making his pathetic existence even more tortuous than what it was now.
Once she had even gotten drunk and stumbled upon his agonized form sleeping on a slab of sidewalk. After making the discovery, she then proceeded to beat him and deliver a series of stiletto puncturing kicks to his flesh; rambling and sobbing with scalding tears racing down her cheeks.
The bruises, which always seemed to sting more when they were delivered from her, that night long ago reminded him among other things to keep his distance no matter the cost.
Belle allowed herself a slight chuckle at the sight of the pathetic waste of flesh lurching away like a frightened deer in the sights of a starving wolf. She would get the sheriff to pick him up for loitering after the storm was over, to add one more mark on his mile long rap sheet, and allow him to have a meal of the horrid jail grub.
She couldn't have him dying on her just yet, no his torment would not end so mercifully as the sweet release of eternal sleep.
And neither would Regina's she noted. Her brief smirk disappeared into a hateful frown merely at the thought of the harpy; the woman who plotted and aided the murderer to take her only family away.
Oh but after 28 years the ground she had fallowed and sewn with the seeds of revenge so long ago were beginning to come to their peak and ready for an ample harvest.
A woman named Emma Swann was in town, fetched from Boston by her true son, Henry. The boy whom Regina had adopted, with Belle's infinite aid.
That was all by Belle's guiding hand of course. The lawyer just so happened to find a child for the lonely Regina who just happened to be the birth so of the only one who could rip the curse asunder, and therefore begin to pry the weakness intricately place in the curse out.
The loophole in the contract, so minute, Regina had missed it in her preening, victorious pride, was there now in Storybrooke, and had taken the advantageous position of sheriff with the promise of staying for a spell.
The curse could be broken, and who else would it be shattered by but the daughter of her hated enemy Snow White.
Irony was indeed a delectable dish, Belle chuckled humorously to herself. The justice in that felt nearly like honey on her tongue.
Turning away from the window, the beauty, padded towards the bullet proof glass door with her name and practice engraved upon the glass in crimson letters and put up her normal 'be back later' sign.
A sigh fell from her lips as she pulled the blinds down and slowly strode to the back room of her locked office where no one, under any circumstance, was allowed.
The inside was dark and gloomy save for a window covered with a flimsy blue drape filtering in the gray light and an antique Tiffany lamp. Few treasures were to be found in her office vault, which was arguably safer that the vault at the Storybrooke first national bank!
The most important trinkets, spared from the curse rested in the back room where no one had seen it but herself for all of 28 years.
Taking a seat in the only steel chair in the room, Belle flipped open a thick mahogany steam trunk and began rooting through it slowly and diligently as she roved through her thoughts.
Yes, Regina would pay for what she had done all those long years ago. She thought she had won, but that was all part of the ruse.
Belle allowed her to win; she allowed for Regina to wake up in this life as the all powerful mayor, she allowed the harpy to think herself unbeatable, unconquerable. And now, at the absolute height of her rule, she would watch it all burn to ashes.
She would watch her little empire nestled in the back woods of Maine crumble before her very eyes, and stand fettered and powerless to halt its destruction.
Her eternal enemy would fall back in love with her soul mate, Charming, and though the imperious harpy would try to rip them away, nothing would wrench them apart this time.
Slowly, like a knife cutting through her skin to peel back her flesh, Regina would witness a revolt of her enslaved subjects. Though they seemed not in name or action that was truly what they were; laboring ants under her iron heel.
Emma Swann would be their daringly brave liberator and would take the wicked queen to task, blow for blow, cunning for cunning, determination for determination and though they would seem equally matched Miss Swann would constantly take the day in victory one way or another causing endless infuriation and more carelessness emanating from Regina.
Then, as certain as the sun rising in the east, Regina would come waltzing around to Annabelle's firm, trying to slyly procure a deal, or have use of her talents as a lawyer, or as an underhanded business woman.
That part had already occurred, with Regina desperately wanting to know how to rid herself of the irksome Miss Swann before the frayed threads of the curse could be cut completely.
She had been outraged to find the clause in the curse and demanded to know the reason for such a ridiculous thing.
Yet she knew before the words let spew from her mouth why such a flaw was woven in.
Rage so hot momentarily overtook Annabelle that she fought the urge to slam and pitch her balled fist against the few precious trinkets surrounding her at the memory of a few days go.
She could see Regina's little irksome, infuriating smirk as she used a finger to swipe a line of dust from Belle's 'university' diploma she had nailed to the wall.
"You're still mad about that little misunderstanding, Annabelle dear?" She scoffed and rolled her eyes though her teal orb glinted with savoring cruelty and malice. "He was only a slave, and the brat a worthless bastard. I assumed you would have gotten over them by now."
How Belle had nearly killed her in that moment, but the always preening toad seemed not to comprehend how close she had nearly invoked her own demise so prematurely.
Only the pleasant thoughts of the fate that awaited Regina as the curse constantly became unwound day by day had stayed Annabelle's hand from reaching under her desk and unloading a clip of bullets into the wicked queens pallid hide.
Of course, after Regina had learned of the fallible terms, she hadn't been too dispirited; she was certain her cunning would win the day despite Belle's attempt at sabotage of her regime.
And yes, there would be a moment where she thought she would in the end be victorious as she always dreamed. A desperate plot would be hatched, using the last thing she loved from the old world, and just when she thought it had finally given her the edge it would ultimately be her utter undoing.
That had happened only brief hours before. Poor Henry was now lying in a coma in the hospital and Emma and Regina running about like chickens with their head cut off, trying to come up with something to save the child's life.
Belle of course had sent them scampering on a wild goose chase, that would look to end in tragedy for both, then arise as a victory for Miss Swann.
Then, a grim smile etched wickedly upon the Dark One's lovely features as her mind wove through the next current of events that would hopefully take place, then Regina's folly would be known and she would feel the abject endless void and ache of what it was like to loose a child she cherished.
And in the end as her body was being flayed and branded and scourged by the angered masses awakened by the curse, with her son that she truly did love clinging to his birth mother looking on, happy and also hatful of his adopted matron, she would know instinctively what it was to loose everything she had ever loved and just how hard a blow she had struck upon the Dark One those years ago.
Just as the harpy played the puppet strings of ripping away everything the Dark One had chanced herself to care for and cherish, she would see first hand what horror she had wrought upon her heart
A soft click snapped from the secret bottom on the chest, making a small compartment door hidden cunningly in the side of the mahogany trunk pop open, and in turn yank Belle away from her contemplations.
Somberly, reverently almost, the beauty slipped her trembling hand inside. Pulling out she brought forth the blood coated fabric with the heart still wrapped in its stained fibers. Magic held these things in everlasting memoriam, just as the first day she had grasped them.
Tears of shameful regret never ceased to well in her eyes at the sight and remind her of what Regina had done to tear her happiness away and grind into dust, and her folly in sending them away.
Slowly putting her hand back into the secret cubby, the beauty brought out a vile repugnant liquid bubbling in a crystal vial. Her eyes scanned the poison almost covetously as she licked her lips like it might have been the finest wine.
Once the foul harpy was brought low, the Dark One would soon join her love and child; the poison was quick and would be just the trick in swiftly taking her from the world of the living.
A day never went by where she didn't think of her Rum and child, or the dull ache to be with them. Every night they danced in her dreams and every morning she awoke thinking she heard the sound or Wren crying for breakfast or squealing in delight and the murmurs of her Rum tending their daughter.
"It's almost over." Belle whispered tearfully towards the bloodied shirt and heart; the last remnants of her family that could have been. "We'll get her soon; Rum, then I'll be with you and Wren forever."
Her thumbs traced little circles on the fabric as she wept mournfully. The tears turned crimson as they plopped upon the blood stained cloth. "I hope you forgive me for what I did."
But she knew better. She had laid their death warrants. Forgiveness was about as hopeful as Regina suddenly giving up her game of ruler ship and laying down to die.
Abruptly the bell above her door jangled merrily alerting the lawyer to the presence of others. Rage rumbled in her chest at the intruding sound. Of all times to be disturbed! Could people not read a simple 'be back later' sign with a cardboard clock attached?
But then again, so used to only having desperate clients, and none of which who would enter with such a sign on the door, she hadn't locked her establishment in the daytime for many years.
Using all her will, the beauty banished the tears back as she delicately placed the items back in their compartment and locked them away for safety.
She had to stop being Belle for the time being. Wiping the last vestiges of tears away and put on her cunning, evilly implicated grimace, it was time to be Annabelle the heartless to those who had stupidly wandered in and ruined her daily repose.
"H-hello?" An insipid, male voice echoed about the front of the firm.
A growl churned in Annabelle's throat as she stomped angrily towards the front office. She would have a good tearing out of the lout who had intruded when the sign clearly said no one was there!
"Can you not read?" Belle snarled viciously, to frighten the poor sod. She hadn't reached the front yet, but decided to give the intrepid soul a good scare. "It said be back later! Why I should sue you for breaking and-…" She paused, her breath snatched away in utter shock at the sight before her.
It couldn't be…It literally couldn't be possible.
Rum, with little Wren in his arms.
He looked exactly the same as he had the day he had been banished from the Dark Castle, his long, dirty brown hair, warm brown eyes, though fringed with weariness.
He wore a dark gray Storybrooke correctional facility buttoned shirt, with his prison number on a strip of white by his heart that he tried to cover up.
Wren looked the same as well, though her pink clothes were a bit disheveled. Always curious she looked about as though the place was just a new section of the Dark Castle and a new adventure.
"I'm sorry I don't mean to intrude. Are you Annabelle French?" The man who looked so very much like Rum stammered warily.
The poor, lanky creature looked prepared to smash right through the door and bolt away if she snapped another word at him.
Annabelle's mouth moved slowly, trying to reply, but for long moments no words would form. How could he have been alive, after all this time?
She saw Wren and Rum every day, staring back at her in the mirror, silhouettes of their shadows dancing upon the walls, whispers of their voices, but never had she seen them so clearly, so real.
It had to be some trick, some last ditch effort to convince Annabelle to help gather up the frayed threads of the curse and patch them back in order. But then, where was Regina if it was her so called plot?
She took a cautious step forward as though any sudden move would make them disappear like frightened rabbits back down their holes. "Rum…?" She finally managed to say in disbelief.
"Rum?" He echoed confusedly through chattering teeth. The former prisoner shook his head. "If Jefferson contacted you before I arrived then I'm afraid you misheard. I'm Ray Gold and this is my daughter Robin."
Rum and Wren, Ray and Robin now… alive? What cruel elaborate taunt was this, to break her heart all over again? Yet, Anna couldn't help but believe, to be drawn to them, though she assumed they were some figment of her crazed imagination or an extra bit of magic Regina had spared for a rainy day.
She expected to touch his shoulder and her hand to drift through then his body to curl and wisp away as smoke pawed away. Yet when she finally prodded up her courage, his cold, rain soaked cloths were as real as her own.
"You're real." She whispered awed, squeezing a bit to thoroughly confirm his presence. It was not magic, but muscle and skin and blood. Her hand then went to Wren to touch the child on her grubby pink cheek. "You're both real." She turned her face back to Rum, from her daughter, her cobalt depths swelling with tears of joy. "You're alive."
In that moment, if a heart could burst with utter jubilations, Belle's did so. She didn't care about the how or the why, only that they were. Her arms wrapped around her Rum; careful of the babe who squealed in delight and grabbed at her russet tresses.
The sopped rain water soaked through her expensive suit, but she cared not in the least. She could have held on to them forever thanking whatever turn of fate had revived them from the grave and set them on the path before her.
Ray backed away unsurely, his eyes belaying a loss; confused about the one person all the other inmates whispered as ruthless was now breaking down into tears at the very sight of him and his little daughter.
His brow knit furtively at his as his mind tried to dredge up a memory of her that seemed to be just skimming below the surface of his brain. "I'm sorry, have we met before?"
As though answering her father's own question, little Wren reached out her ever grasping hands towards Annabelle, her eyes holding remembrance and knowing that her papa did not. "M-m…ma…ma." She gurgled happily. Of course she was going to remember. She was her mother's daughter; magic raced in her blood as well.
Rum flushed fiercely at his daughters limited vocabulary that only knew 'papa, but as far as he knew had never said 'mama'. "I'm sorry for that. She's been in foster care while I was in prison; I suppose that's where she picked that up being handed from home to home all over Boston."
Had it been any other person who had come through the door with the same plight and a curious daughter, Annabelle would have inwardly laughed and found hefty amount of amusement in their curse veiled mind. For nearly thirty years no one had aged as life went one, save Henry, and no one seemed to notice.
"It's quite alright." The attorney assured him with a soft smile and ruffled Robin's dirty brown tresses. Fighting the urge to ask, no, beg him could she hold her daughter, the beauty turned her attention to more important matters. "How did you find this place?"
How did you find me after all these years, was what she desperately wanted to inquire, but he had no knowledge of her or that past life. Here he was Ray Gold, convict and by the looks of him, not freed by the legal means in anyway.
A sigh fell from his lips as Annabelle proffered him to a plush seat so they could speak. Just as Ray sank weakly into the burgundy leather armchair, the black tabby came waltzing inside the main office again, hearing familiar voices he had not heard in many years.
The feline gazed at the two easily and purred warmly, as if to say 'oh look those two again' and retreated back to its comfortable cubby; totally nonplused in the slightest, but secretly delighted by their return.
Adjusting Robin in a more comfortable position in his arms, the prisoner dove right in to his tale. "A man named Jefferson came to my solitary confinement cell and released me. I followed him a secret route outside, where he handed me my daughter." He paused for a moment and looked down tenderly at the child.
"After that, he told me to find an attorney named Miss Annabelle French; he said you'd protect me. He also said to give you a message, 'you have to end this madness'. To be honest I have no clue what it mean, but he said you would understand." He halted again; his face wrenching with sorrow and pleading. "Please, I can't loose my little girl again. I can't go back to prison."
"What were you convicted of, if I may query?" The lawyer asked curiously gentle. What would Regina have termed his incarceration under?
The newly released convict turned down his head ashamedly. "I couldn't purchase formula for my daughter, or afford anything to eat. I got charged with failed attempt at breaking and entering a mansion near the outskirts of town."
Annabelle nodded understandingly though in all actuality it was a begrudging nod toward Regina. If there was one thing the harpy knew it was bitter irony to taunt her foe.
"I know I did wrong, but it felt like decades I was stuck in that solitary confinement." Ray continued. "All for a breaking and entering charge. I thought I might have been locked in there forever or they lost my case file." He shuddered at the thought and looked back at her beseechingly, as though she were the last hope on earth. "So you will protect us?"
Protect them as she should have done in the first place, Belle thought inwardly. The very thought stabbed at her soul like a poisoned dagger, nearly making her flinch.
"With my very life." Anna blurted meaningful, unable to blink back the tears this time. She could still barely believe they were in front of her alive and well. They had been hidden and kept from her probably as some last ditch insurance policy from the cruel toad Regina.
Ray cocked a brow curiously at her. "You still haven't answered my question from before. Do we know each other?" It seemed like he vaguely recalled her, but perhaps that was only do to a few snippets he caught here and there by passing inmates about the hard as nail lawyer.
Another pang stabbed in Belle's heart, as she had to scold and remind herself, this was Ray and not Rum; not yet.
The russet haired beauty shook her head somberly and brushed the hot tears from her cheeks. "No, but you will. Soon, I promise. But first, there is something I must do." She stated abruptly, a wicked glimmer in her azure eye.
Opening the drawer beneath her desk, the lawyer brought out a shining black 27. MM pistol. She held the weight of it in her palm, imagining ti was Regina's black heart. That witch would pay for all she had done.
Ray's eyes went wide with sudden fear as he clutched Robin closer to his body. What was she going to use that for?
Stashing it into her leather, ruby purse, she silently stood up, smiled warmly, and beckoned the wary and shocked inmate to follow. Seeing no other recourse, the ages old spinner rose and warily trailed behind a woman he had known so long ago.
~8~8~
Regina was sure to be here, Annabelle assured herself as her sleek car rolled to a wet stop outside the Storybrooke hospital. Henry would have already taken a turn for the worst and everyone was probably already lamenting the poor boy's unexpected fate. Oh but all was not to be lost, for Emma at least.
Regina had not only ripped the Dark One's heart out and crumpled it into ashes, but for all those years she had been inwardly laughing at a Belle's stupidity not know her child and love where quite alive and miserable.
That fact would not go unpunished.
Ray had said nary a word in the long drive, but had sat in the passenger seat, looking at her curiously and holding his daughter protectively away from the gun tucked away in Annabelle's crimson leather purse. He didn't ask what she was to do with it. In truth, he didn't want to find out.
This Annabelle French was a strange woman, looking hard and cruel and corrupted, then when she turned to them looking soft and warm mingled liberally with regret. He felt as though he should know her, like he had always known her, but for the life of him, nothing of the past would resurface.
"You're not going to be hurt and you're not going back to prison." Anna reassured him, as she followed his eyes to the gun concealing purse. "I own this town. I once beat a cripple half to death, for stealing a tea cup, in broad day light and no one dared even call the authorities."
Ray blanched at such admittance, making the lawyer smile fondly at him. Same old Rum to the last. He would be at least once all was said and done.
A slight ripple of wind brushed past the car as Annabelle switched off the vehicle and opened the door, but she barely noticed it as more than a slight warm breeze. Now that she had Rum and Wren, nothing mattered. Regina would pay in spades, even if it did heavens knew what to the curse.
Yet while she may not have paid any heed to the zephyr, Ray felt the tingling sensation of magic gust past his figure. The fair wind was like a blow to the head as pictures and time began to swarm in his mind and flow like a river melted free of winter ice.
He remembered being banished and waylaid upon the road by the evil Regina and her black clad minions and how she had conjured doubles in their places and took Wren's shirt and ripped the heart out of one of her men and stashed it into the magical double of Rumpelstiltskin. He remembered his daughter being born. He remembered first being fearful of his unstable mistress then falling in love with Belle, the Dark One.
"Wait." Rum stated almost numbly, just as the chestnut haired lawyer grabbed her purse and was beginning to step out of her car on her way to seek long overdue justice.
She didn't dare turn back to him, fearing another bout of tears, and the aching regret that stabbed her once more. "Don't worry, I'll be quick." The beauty promised before starting to move again.
"Belle, wait." Rum echoed again, his hand gently on her arm.
The Dark One paused as though frozen. Had he…? She fell limply back into her seat, turning to his smiling face. "Rum?" Belle broached warily?
He only nodded in reply.
There were so many questions spinning in their heads, but Rum shook them all away as he touched her cheek tenderly with his calloused hand. "I…I remember."
The words were like a knife stabbing in Belle's heart. What did he remember? His unjust banishment, her lies, and her punishments she so cruelly flayed upon him, her anger?
She wanted to beg for his forgiveness, but the prisoner continued. "I…I love you." He claimed whole heartedly with a watery smile.
"Yes." Belle finally managed to stammer through disbelief and happiness. After all this time, after everything she had done, he still loved her! Her arms wrapped around him in a vice hug, like she would never let him go. "Yes and I love you, my Rum. I'm so sorry. All I said, I never meant it, and I thought you were dead and…and…"
Rum held her close stroking her hair tender. "It's alright now. Belle, my Belle." He whispered. "We're together; all of us."
"Oh there is so much I want to ask you, so many words in my heart that I cannot speak." She exclaimed through racking sobs.
Blinking back the waterfall of tears slowly, she looked back to the hospital where half the curse had been broken, then back to her Rum.
Regina would get her full torment in the end once the curse had been fully broken. Ending her life now would be a mercy, and though Belle was many things merciful was not amongst them by no stretch of the imagination.
And besides, the Dark One still had so much to learn in what had happened. How had they survived?
Rum grinned through sparkling tears of his own. "They'll be time for that. They'll be time for everything now that we're together again." And this time, Rum promised, he would not go so easily again. If there ever was an again, he would fight to his dying breath.
Belle felt shame tighten in her chest. She had no right to his love or their daughters after all she had done. After all her stupidity she should have been spat on and cursed. "I don't deserve forgiveness; not from you or Wren. But these years bereft of your presence I had time to learn and grow and reap the regret of my temper. I want us to be a family; a part of your family." She turned her head away. "If you will accept me."
"Belle." He whispered quietly in a tear strangled reply. His lips neared hers as though drawn to them, hers drifted to his own. "I already forgave you a thousand times over." Rum stated gently just as their lips met in a tender kiss.
Warmth radiated from their lips pressed together in an all consuming kiss that bound them in blood and fire and reunion.
The kiss barely lasted three short seconds before little Wren giggled joyously and pounded her tiny fists at them. The pair parted, laughing merrily and nervously all the while as they turned to their interruptive baby daughter.
Outside, the sky had cleared from the clouds to a deep azure hue and people were beginning to mill about in confusion with their memories regained. The Dark One gazed perceptively out her windshield before turning her car back on, and flashing Rum another soft smile.
"Storybrooke will be in turmoil very soon, but for now." She laughed and gave her love a kiss on the cheek. "Let's have this time together. We'll go back to my, our, home."
Rum chuckled at a thought as the car revved to life and began to roll away. "I'll have thirty years of chores to catch up on, won't I?"
The beauty almost yelled out a panicked 'no'. He was no longer a slave or a prisoner of any type, but a second later she realized by his scruffy crooked smile, it was a jest. "No, but we do have other things that are long over due." She retorted with a sly grin that he returned ten-fold.
"Of course, mistress." He replied as he took her free hand and kissed it in a gentleman like manner.
Belle smiled back as him, as they journey to her mansion on the fringe of the awakened Storybrooke.
Totally, finally, a family.
Fin
~8~8~
A/N: Wow, just thanks to everyone who took the time to read and review. I usually reply back to the comments I can, but if I missed you, or couldn't, let me just inform you guys are awesome. This had to end fluffy. I am a happy ending kind of gal at heart (Some times) though I do like twisting people's hearts along the way! I greatly enjoyed the challenge of writing a role reversal and I hope you enjoyed it too!
Much obliged,
-Eyeslikedawn :3