A/N: This chapter came up a little late. I apologize. I sincerely hope this chapter doesn't suck to bad, I have been sick for the past couple days. Orange juice and ibuprophen have patched me up nicely so yay! Thanks for reading and reviewing, lovlies.

~8~8~

"Papa, stop!" A shriek of fear erupted from Belle's lush pink lips as she tried to rush to the defence of her wounded love. Guy Stone's bulging arms held her like newly forged chains about her form, cruelly denying her access to be by the Dark One's side.

Her heart felt near bursting with dark turmoil and frustrated rage as she could only watch her beloved father inflict hurt beyond compare to her helpless husband.

Moe stared hatefully at the bleeding, shocked Rumpelstiltskin's nary even turning around to acknowledge his daughters tear choked plea of clemency. His entire, large body shook with unbridled wrath only an outraged father could summon as he ignored his only family as though she were some rambling, crazy woman.

When word got out she was with child, Mr. Gold's seed no less, he would be the joke and ridicule of the entire town! His large hands curled into twin fists 'til his knuckles took on a ghastly white pall. Even the very thought made the flower salesmen seethe with pernicious rage. He would be known as the man whose daughter whored herself to the monster of Storybrooke!

"You think because you're the richest man in town you can do whatever you want, and treat anyone how you like!" He roared vehemently toward the writhing form pinned beneath his boot and stuck out a pudgy finger at the fiend. Flecks of ivory foam amassed slightly at the side of his lips as though he were a rabid animal. "I couldn't believe it when Regina contacted me, but I should have seen it sooner! What need would a miserable old soul like you want with a young woman if it wasn't to sate some filthy desire!" A dark curse past his cracked lips as he stomped with all the fury he could summon, on the Dark One's knee once more.

A blood chilling howl of in sheer torment erupted from Rumpelstiltskin's lips as he felt the tender tendons burning with acid fire sluicing to the very bone. His trembling hands reached down to grasp the injured limb, his bloodstained fingers desperately trying to massage the screaming pain away.

Swearing once more, the flower salesmen kicked him in the chest deny even such a small comfort to the Dark One's mangled knee.

Agony wrenched through his form like a wave of torturous magic. His breath came out in hallow ragged gasps as he lay helpless at the hands of her loves father. For the first time in a very long time he wished he still possessed his magic to transform the hulking waste of life and space into a bug. Being under the boot of Moe French made him feel akin to the helpless spinner of old.

"Papa!" The beauty cried aghast at such torment her father elicited on her tormented love. How could he father be so utterly cruel?

Her muscles strained to the point of exhaustion as she struggled vainly in Gaston's massive arms. Tendrils of her dark amber mane wisped wildly through the air as she used every trick to escape his barbaric hold. Trying to break free from his muscled grip was akin to prying a loose the coils of a python from its prey.

Tears sprang to her cobalt depths and she lurched and twisted and attempted with all her will to be break free and be by her husband's side. Sorrow twisted her heart in its bony talons seeing him lying at her father mercy. Her clever fingers dug viciously into the deputy's arms till she could feel him wince beneath her claws and the brown fabric tear beneath her nails.

"Please, Papa, you don't know the whole story." She begged piteously, her word wrangling out in horror. She stood willing to do anything for the pain to be alleviated from her lover if her father would but listen.

Moe turned back to his daughter, his corpulent, face wrenched in sheer, unadulterated fury. "Guy, take her some place safe!" He swiveled back to Gold and spat upon the businessman's writhing form. His face darkened to something cold and sinister Belle had never seen in her father's eyes before. "I'll be along after I teach this wretched monster about taking advantage of innocent women!"

"No! You don't understand!" Belle screamed as the brute deputy began all too happily to haul her kicking and twisting form away.

Her hands groped desperately in front of her as though by some miracle she could reach and touch her love. What would happen to him now that he lay helpless at her father's hands?

The distinct steely lock of a pistol hammer clicked through the air as soon as Guy managed to lift her off the ground and nearly over his broad shoulder like his Neanderthal heritage that burned through his veins. "You're not taking her anywhere against her will." Emma growled to the hulking deputy as she stepped in front of his path; the lone barricade against a giant.

Tilting his head up stupidly as though just registering another presence, Stone stared keenly upon the hard form of Emma Swann. The blonde stood like graceful warrior in the face of a dragon, awaiting glorious battle.

Guy's dull, dark gray eyes narrowed at the challenge. "This is a matter of family." He stated sagaciously as though what he did was proper and completely legal.

"No. It's a matter of law and kidnapping." The blonde rebuffed with a dangerous snarl. She leveled the gun at Guy's thick head with a perfect shot aimed for the middle of his skull. Her mouth was one grim line as she squeezed the trigger slightly ready to unleash the bullet into his dense skull. "I may have no idea just what's going on, but I can see she wants to stay. If she doesn't want to go, turn her loose."

"She wants to be away from this…this…beast." Moe interjected resolutely, his face a stony picture of rage. Meeting Anna's eyes for the first time since the encounter, he stared at her deeply. "Don't you, Anna?"

The beauty tossed her dark, amber mane and continued her valiant struggle to wrench free of Gaston's viselike clutches. "No, Papa, I want to stay." She replied willfully without a hint of doubt.

"You heard her." Emma motioned to the brute that stood like a mountain practically heaving with wrath at the beauty's proclamation. "Let her go."

A quiet, tense moment pulsed heatedly through the shop. Danger and disaster hung by a spilt hair on the cusp of shattering into tragedy. Deputy and bounty hunter stared loathsomely at one another, doing silent battle with their eyes. If he disregarded her would she truly shoot?

After as brief, instance in the span of time Guy begrudgingly relaxed his muscle bound arms. Gingerly planting Anna upon the ground, the brute rudely shoved the beauty towards the glass counter. "Fine." He snapped in a snarl of disgust. "Take your slut, Gold."

Belle bounded from his grip as though free from the clutches of death towards her defenseless husband. The words of Gaston evaporated away like mist to the summer sun. Nothing he could say would ever effect her so, with her love near and in peril.

Her heart swelled for her love like a tide. She would even fight her father to see her love, her Rum out of pain.

Before she should slip behind the counter, the deplorable flower salesmen stopped her progress. He held his hands outstretched imploringly, his tone pleading and vaguely confused. "Anna…what are you doing. I'm saving you from this monster."

"You don't understand." She protested stoically, her voice low and fraught with sorrow that glimmered in her azure depths.

How could she possibly tell him all that had happened betwixt them whilst she was a prisoner and slave? Proclaiming she'd been married for 27 years would more than likely get her hauled to the hospital for a psyche evaluation. And to claim that she loved him? Would her father even believe such a truth declared from every inch of her bright soul?

In an instant, the haggard Moe French's demeanor of pernicious wrath faltered and wilted like a flower touched by the tongues of winter frost.

The anger upon his face crumpled to pain and concern for his only daughter. He took her delicate hands in his huge, thorn calloused grip that had been toughened by years of working plants. "Why didn't you tell me, Anna? You didn't have to let him do these abhorrent things to you. Let me lose my shop, let me lose everything to keep your virtue."

He shook his head as though the weight of the revelation was truly just coming to bear upon his senses. Astounded beyond viable reason, he murmured aghast. "All these years. The hell he's put you through. You don't have to stay any longer."

"Papa." Belle took a deep, wavering breath, steeling herself. "I'm staying with him."

"But you don't have to stay!" Her father's phlegm ridden voice rose slightly. His blubbery face reddened like a beet as though he'd been on a drinking binge. "You don't even have to keep-."

"I will keep my child!" Screamed the beauty violently. Rage, hot and untamed flared to life within the very core of her soul and heart. Her father stumbled a step back, unable to dash away the surprise by his daughter outrage from his flabby face.

There was not many times where Belle became fierce. She was a woman of quiet, tender intellect who won from guile and brilliance, but let it never be said she did not have a streak of anger. Fury blazed like a phoenix through her heart, tumbling from her mouth like a flow of lava.

She pointed a clever finger to her chest, her indigo eyes blazing like blacksmiths forges. "The child is mine, as well as his! I am not ashamed of the pregnancy, nor will I try to deny who the father is."

"You risk embarrassment to yourself!" Moe roared furiously and pounded a fist to his chest so hard it might have cracked bone. "You risk embarrassment and public ridicule to me!"

Belle seethed darkly, her heart hurting inwardly for her dear papa. "You did that yourself." She replied cuttingly and stepped away.

The former king stood still as stone staring at the spot where his daughter once stood. His jaw tightened and shoulder stiffened as he spat on the floor. "Whore." He sneered loud enough for all to hear.

Belle could not suppress a flinch but did nothing to confront his hateful words that pierced the very tender flesh of her soul. Neither Arrows nor bullets alike could injure her so much as her dear papa's hatefully spoken heart.

Without another word, Moe stomped out of the Dark One's pawnshop with the towering brute Guy behind him, still smoldering with anger.

The deputy's steps resounded hard about the shop. His one chance to finally claim Annabelle and she'd chosen to stay with the monster that had bred her! Perhaps, he pondered with as much thought as his tiny mind could gather, she truly was insane as those spoke long ago.

"Ray!" Belle breathed his false name worriedly and knelt by his side. Her mind dismissed all others save her husband who lay injured by the only other man she loved.

Blood oozed in crimson rivulets from his face as he shifted groaned groggily, lost in a sea of torment. Moe's brutal abuse of his injured leg had conjured his mind to black out once or twice with every hard dig into his maimed appendage. His dark eyes fluttered opened slowly to view his wife looming over him worriedly with his head in her lap.

Warm tears fell upon his brow as she stroked his face tenderly. Leaning low, she gently pressed a kiss to his forehead. How after all the years together were their lives marred? Change that occurred in Storybrooke was mostly good, and yet was their destined to be horrid at every turn?

Emma's eyes sat riveted to the door whilst the pair of anger men departed in a storm of frustration and anger down the walk. Once she was certain all that remained was their horrid cologne and the smell of old beer and soil, she quickly holstered her gun and all but jumped behind the counter to inspect the injured Gold.

Kneeling down by his leg, the blonde rolled up his suit leg to inspect the abused knee. Swelled, angry red flesh and blood met her gaze as she pried up the fabric. Pinkish upraised scars from long ago had burst and reopened in some ugly mismatch of old and knew wounds that oozed from his flesh.

"Do you guys need an ambulance or something?" She asked stoically to keep her stomach from churning and gingerly and expertly examined the fiend's knee.

"No…." Gold stammered in protest. Attempting to sit up, he hissed in pain and squeezed his chestnut orbs shut tightly as his maimed knee clamped down in agony. Spurts of blood squirted through the air as though protesting his every move.

Belle pressed a hand to his heated, haggard cheek making him turn to her. Uncaring Emma was present she spoke tenderly to her love. "You need an ambulance."

"I don't want to leave you alone." He opposed weakly, though his knee felt as though it had been crumpled to splinters. Even when his knee had been pierced by an arrow in the Ogres Wars the pain was not so great as the agony throbbing up and down his leg and thigh. "You're father might come back and do something…unsavory."

Darkness of old abruptly skittered across his timeless heart. Oh but if something…anything happened to his Belle, his one and only….The fiend curled his hand into a fist, his own pain temporarily banished from his mind like nothing more than smoke upon the wind. If her father dredged up any vengeful plot then the days of old as the cruel, beastly Dark One would look like a ill tempered child at play compared to what he'd do to King Maurice.

"I'll be fine." The beauty managed a false grin that dissipated quicker than she could summon up a spattering of unsure promise. She curled her hand around his tightly, sending her love through the tender touch. "I'll close up shop then go straight home until Whale gives me a call."

Emma interjected hopefully. "I'll go check up on her later if it'll make you feel better." She offered, her eyes pinioned worriedly upon his crumpled, swelling knee. A pool of crimson dripped upon the dust ridden floor making a sizable puddle that foretold a serious blood lose problem if he didn't receive medical attention soon.

A brief look of indecision darted across the Dark One's like a gray cloud. Nodding her motioned his head slightly to the back. "Alright. There's a phone in the back, Miss Swann, if you'd be so kind…."

Dutifully, the savior trotted off, leaving the secret couple alone for a few precious minutes.

Ignoring the gray tinged motes of dust clogging his throat and even the incessant pain that throbbed violently in his injured limb, Rumpelstiltskin lifted a hand tremulously to his wife's smooth belly. His chestnut eyes tilted upward in awe, finding her glimmering orbs shining upon him like twin blue moons.

"Is…is it true…?" He whispered in loving astonishment. "Is my…our child?"

Tears brooked through the dust upon Belle's porcelain cheeks as she nodded slowly. Blue of the purest sapphire glimmered brightly in her orbs as she replied so quietly only he could hear. "Yes, Rumpelstiltskin. Our wish finally came true."

Claws of darkness that desired to drag the fiend in the realm of unconsciousness once more blurred her lovely face in his eyes. With the last of his cognitive thought, the fiend wearily lifted her hand to his mouth. Struggling to stay conscious he pressed his lips to her hand in a joyful, warm kiss that over came even his pain before sweet oblivion took him thrall.

~8~8~

The solemn peal of the door bell tolling in alert to visitors at the door made Belle jump as she halted her worried pacing. Anxiousness prickled her skin making Goosebumps dance upon her flesh as the sound frightfully assailed her ears.

True, Whale had called to see how she was faring with the news, and the excitment for the day, but Belle had been little more that snipped and crisp with the towns best known physichian. Despite what he may deny, she knew from her father's words he had slipped the news to Regina who some how told her father.

All in town knew Anna's grueling schedule contained no time for dating, and rumors had been circulating about them since anyone could remember. Putting two and two together would have been simple enough for the cruel hapry and making her father believe the same would have been laughably easy and far to juicy to let it go unspoken in the tiny hamlet of Storybrooke.

Of course along with Whale's half hearted concern, the good doctor calmly reassured the beauty, her loves injury was no more than a very painful break of skin and a nasty contusion. Even still, Belle couldn't help but worry without her husband by her side.

For the first time in their marriage they would not share a bed. The beauty shivered violently even at the unpleasant thought of the coldness of their nest of blankets and sheets and rolling over to not feel his wiry form ready to hold her like the perfect piece to a puzzle.

Lady and the sleepy Bandit ears twitched slightly, but neither even emitted a low growl of warning at the hard, urgent knocks. Emma, Belle knew immediately, a feeling somewhat like security engulfing her worrisome frame.

As the knocking grew louder and more pronounced, the wary beauty padded quickly to the door. Expertly undoing the myriad of steel locks, she swung the door open ready to assure the new comer and send her on her way.

"Why didn't you tell me!" An unexpected Ruby demanded as she huffed and puffed into Mr. Gold's pink manse like a force of nature hell bent on destruction and terror.

One painted hand fiercely gripped a metallic black can of pepper spray while the other was armed with a pink tazer in her readiness to do battle less the fiend be freed from the hospitable early. Her odd golden eyes were narrowed like some feral creature on the prowl of hunters.

In the kitchen, Belle could hear the two dogs whine piteously and scurry to the back of the house as though a rabid predator had entered their house. Though she could not, they could most certainly smell or sense what Ruby truly was beneath the lush form and silky mane streaked with carnelian.

Emma slipped in past Ruby like a guilty child caught in some frowned upon mischief. Her face flushed with abject embarrassment. "I'm so sorry, Annabelle. By the time I finished unpacking my stuff at Mary Margaret's, Ruby tracked me down in a rabid frenzy. Turns out that mountain of a deputy spread the news once they left."

"Yeah, and now it's like wildfire out there with some other unscrupulous, graphic details he put in." The scarlet server deadpanned as she all but invaded Mr. Gold's antique ridden home. She stomped from room to room like some murderous behemoth on a blood thirsty quest. "So first things first, tell us where the suitcases are so we can get you out of this crypt, then where the bleach is so we can ruin all those expensive suits."

Belle's shoulders drooped tiredly, unable to halt her friends revenge filled frenzy with the most possible haste. The day had already been filled with turmoil and excitement and happiness, what she did not need was a destructive Ruby.

"It's not what you think." Belle protested, fatigued, her voice unable to sound convincing.

The exotic Ruby paused in her tracks in front of the main hall. For the first time since her angry entry she looked concerned for her best friend. Now that the word was out, why didn't she see her golden opportune to flee from the clutches of Mr. Gold?

"Why didn't you tell me he was making you do these things, Anna?" She asked, her voice hoarse as though learning her friend was not all she seemed and some dark, shameful secret lurked beneath her cheerful demeanor. She took a step towards her friend confusedly. "Gold would probably never allow us to let you work at the diner, but I and Granny would have let you and your dad stay at the hotel free of charge. Anna, I don't know what to believe. Some say he's been doing this to you all along, other say it was to torment your father, and believe me there are far, far more dirty rumors circulating and I've heard them all."

Closing her eyes tightly, the beauty shook her head with the last reserve of strength she maintained. "He didn't force me to do anything. I wanted to do them." She looked to her best friend imploringly, silently begging her to understand. "I love him, and I have loved for a very long time now."

An incredulous looked marbled the blondes face as she stared incredulously at the beauty. She crossed her leather clad arms, her inner thoughts troubled. Why, despite what the situation appeared on the surface did she believe the woman? Certainly love could not bloom betwixt such delicate beauty and a horrid beast?

"How can you possibly think you love him?" Ruby retorted, in a rare moment almost lost for words. "Has he tried not to keep it under a cloak of darkness, sequestered in shadow?"

"He has!" Belle shouted, her mind at its wits end. Unthinking she jerked at the golden necklace that held one item she always kept dear.

Light in the dim manse reflected gaily off the diamond of a gorgeous engagement ring. That, Belle always kept upon her person, and if any one noticed, which they never had, she was ready with a reply the beautiful stone had once belonged to her mother.

The prisms of the modest diamond glimmered obliquely with the colors of the rainbow. A band of gold was ready to encircle her finger, and the diamond itself was crafted to look like a blooming rose by some feat of craftsmanship.

Staring at the stunning ring, Ruby was truly struck speechless. Even Emma seemed enthralled by the gem dangling upon the golden cord. "Is that…." The crimson server stammered her lupine eyes wide.

"Yes." Belle couldn't help keep the pride out of her voice though she knew imperatively she was potentially treading dangerous ground. "We're to be wed."