She honestly wasn't sure how long they sat there on the floor with their arms around each other in a protective bundle. It was long enough for her to stop crying, then begin again, then stop again. It was long enough for her to recognize that his forgiveness wasn't the hardest part of all this. Somehow she'd have to come to forgive herself, and she just wasn't sure she could. Not now, not today, not next week. Maybe someday. Maybe never.

She buried her head against the shoulder of his jacket and held him tighter at that thought, wanting never to let go because deep down she considered this form of comfort an unexpected gift. If the world were a fair place, she'd be back at her apartment, curled in a ball, crying over her lies, her actions, and his rejection. Instead what she had was "Can you stand?"

Could she stand? Probably. Her legs still felt shaky, like jelly actually. The room wasn't spinning anymore but it was still swaying, rocking side to side like she was on a boat. "Maybe," she muttered into his collar. "My head hurts and the room is…moving."

She felt him nod against her, never once letting his grip slacken. Parting from him wasn't an option. They both seemed to recognize that and for once in her life she was happy for his power, for the strength and the healing that his curse allowed him to give himself as he whispered a quick "hold on to me", picked her up off the floor, and carried her into the privacy of the back room. He set her down on the cot, but still they didn't stay apart for long. He found that old blanket that they'd used the day that Elsa had knocked the power out and, with a quick gesture, she understood that she had to take the coat and scarf, her winter attire, off and set them aside so that he could sit there next to her on the cot and allowed him to bundle them up.

There was a point and purpose to it, one that was more than it seemed. The way that he'd arranged them at first was deceptive, making it appear as though he only wanted to warm her up or make sure she didn't go into shock, but the moment her back was pressed against his chest and his arms tightened around her waist she felt it. A cool kiss to her head, light, just through her hair so that she barely felt it. Her mind tingled for a moment and in a matter of seconds all the fog seemed to clear, the swaying in the room stopped, her heartbeat slowed. Down the feeling traveled to the tip of her toes making her legs feel whole and sturdy again.

Magic.

He'd used his own to counter whatever the mirror had done to her and although she'd made it perfectly clear in the past how she felt about using magic for things like that…who was she to condemn him at the moment?

"Tell me what happened," he muttered against her after a moment. "Tell me when you met Anna and what happened between the two of you to give you the idea that you are the reason she's missing." It was a gentle tone, but it was insisting. There wasn't an option in it, not anymore. She couldn't lie to him and she didn't want to. Her stomach still clenched, just as it had all week, but slowly she began to let the story pour out of her. All of it, from the beginning, things about her mother that she couldn't understand why she had waited so long to tell…maybe because she always knew it would lead to Anna. To what had happened.

She told him about her missing memories. She told him about sneaking away to Arendelle and meeting Anna. She told him about the rock trolls and the memory stone the clan leader had given her so she could remember her mothers final moments on earth. Then she told him about their trip back, about how jittery Anna had been, how determined she was to get back as fast as possible. The storm she'd seen. The hat Anna had shown her, the one she meant to fetch today. The moment she fell. Two choices and she'd made the wrong one. Anna had fallen, the Snow Queen had taken her and…

"If I'd reached for her I could have pulled her up!" she concluded her voice cracking against her tears. "Maybe if I'd saved her we would have been able to use that hat as she planned and stopped her…all of this!"

"No," he denied gently. "That hat requires powerful magic to be activated. It's possible the Snow Queen, maybe even Elsa, might have been able to use it but the two of you on a mountain…you wouldn't have had a chance against her."

"You know about the hat?"

"As I do most things," he confirmed.

But…when she'd mentioned it on the mountain… "I thought you said you didn't think it existed. That an object like that sounded too good to be true."

"The stories I've heard of it did sound too good to be true until my wife told me that she'd personally seen it." Yes, now that she thought of it that was a silly question. It was another accusation, another small thought that she'd used to tear herself apart; to tear them apart. How could she still be doing that?! Would those thoughts the mirror gave her be with her for their entire life?!

"Fate has a funny way of fixing things for us. If you and Elsa's sister had confronted the Snow Queen one or both of you might be dead. Now, with this turn of events, you both have the opportunity to live."

"So long as we defeat the Snow Queen and find Anna," she commented.

"We will," he promised with certainty, the grip he had on her hand tightening. She didn't deserve this, none of it. The way he'd forgive her, the way he was holding her, the way he was comforting her, the way he'd already given himself over to helping them solve the problem despite his determination to stay out of it all! She was the luckiest woman on the face of the earth. How could there be any inkling left in her mind that underneath all of this he was hiding a gruesome beast from her.

He'd eased her body and the tightening she felt his arms do at her waist eased her emotionally, but not quite intellectually. After all that had happened she should leave it alone, never ask anything of him again especially not when it came to the Snow Queen, but Anna was still out there. Today might have been quickly coming to a close but this wasn't finished yet.

"What was that?" she asked timidly, her voice only a whisper as she desperately tried to get closer in his embrace. "What did she do to me?"

Behind her he sighed. "If it makes you feel any better she didn't do it with you in mind. Anyone would have fallen prey to that mirror."

It didn't make her feel better, but all the same she still had to know what it was. He said it was imbued with dark magic and if anyone could be swayed because of that maybe they needed to remove that particular item from her as well as the hat! "Why?" she asked again. "What does it do?"

His chest rose and fell with another sigh as one of his hands found her own and laced their fingers together making her heart hurt all over again. Had he really forgotten all that had happened in the last couple of hours this quickly?! Forgiven her so completely that he wanted simply to hold her hand?

"That mirror is part of a terrible spell, created for a King who lost his daughter when she took her own life because she was unloved by those in her kingdom. The King requested a curse that would make his unsympathetic subjects feel his pain. The curse was cast on a mirror, causing it to shatter and rain down on the people but it backfired. The curse didn't have enough dark magic and so instead of spreading throughout the kingdom, it only touched those in the castle. Those effected felt pain, though not necessarily the king's pain.

"It's called the Spell of Shattered Sight because it takes every good thing a person has ever done and shrinks it down until it's as if it was never there at all, then takes a hold of every bad thing, every terrible or deceptive thought, or action, no matter how minuscule and magnifies it so that it is all you are capable of seeing. The strong and weak…those distinctions don't matter under this spell. It's a deadly infection but only if the spell is cast, if the mirror shatters and is allowed to distribute the dark power it carries to others. Until the mirror breaks the only one it poses a danger to is the one gazing into it unprepared to fend off it's magic."

It wasn't much but she felt like he'd said more than he actually had. Enough for her to know, enough for her to hurt and to panic. He'd left certain elements of the story out, purposefully and probably accidentally. He was the one, the one that had created the spell or advised the King on how to do it. Advised, it had to be that he advised because the spell had failed. If he'd created it that wouldn't have happened. He hadn't said it and she wouldn't ask because she knew better at this point but she recognized the ways that he had avoided mentioning the curses creator at all costs.

But the curse, she wasn't even sure he caught the meaning of what he'd said, but it certainly rang loud in her ears. Those things that she'd told herself in that mirror, the things she felt and acted on, they weren't completely to blame on the mirror. They'd been there, inside her the entire time. The mirror had just exploited them. That was disturbing. But not as disturbing as what she'd feared he hadn't arrived at yet. The conclusion of his story.

"What happened to them?" she asked. "The ones that lived by the castle, what happened to them after the spell was cast?"

"Without a counter the spell progressed as it should," he answered emotionlessly. "They tore themselves apart until there were none left, the castle was left abandoned, the king dead with no heirs the Kingdom fell, over time the lands were taken by others, eventually the world forgot about them and the tale became just another fairy tale in this realm as well as ours." She was feeling better, the world was stable again but her stomach was doing flip after flip after flip. To think there had been a time she'd worried about the Snow Queen having a hat! That mirror was a ticking time bomb!

"You think she wants to cast the spell?" she questioned.

"I don't know why else she would have a mirror with the spell infused into it," he answered with a small snort of disbelief, as if it was obvious. "She's strengthened the spell, made it strong enough for a great distance."

A great distance. She sat forward, moved away to look him in the eye and face him once more. "How great a distance?" she clarified.

"As powerful as the dark magic I felt coming off of it was? It could cover a great distance, Belle," he answered.

She felt her jaw drop as it gaped open at him, suddenly understanding just how "great" the distance could cover, and the reason The Snow Queen had kept the ice wall in place. The town. There would be no escape. "She wants the town to destroy itself. We have to go!" she realized moving out of his arms and off the cot.

"Go?!" he questioned. "You're not well you shouldn't be going anywhere!"

"We have to go back to the cave," she argued quickly reaching for the winter gear she'd taken off. "We have to destroy the mirror, smash it!"

But before she could leave his hand was wrapped around her wrist, stopping her in place. "Belle," his voice reasoned, "it's not that simple. If it was I'd have destroyed it the moment I saw you with it, but as I said destroying it would only release the power."

It couldn't be destroyed. Couldn't be undone? No. No that wasn't it, it wasn't that it couldn't be undone, the mirror just couldn't be destroyed now. The mirror wasn't really the problem, it was the dark curse attached to it. They had to remove it. "How do we take it away?" she asked. "How do we stop the Spell of Shattered Sight?"

"Magic," he answered. "I'm strong enough to undo the spell but it must be done properly and for me to do what I do best I'll need you to do what you do best."

She nodded, understanding completely. "Research." The answer was out there somewhere they just had to work together to get there. But first… "I have to tell them," she told him. "I have to tell them what I told you and what you told me."

"Right this moment?!"

Something in her stomach turned over at his words. She knew that he wanted to stay out of all of this but this was different. If the curse was cast they'd be effected too and…it didn't matter. For them to keep quiet about this was just as bad as walking up to the Snow Queen and volunteering to help her with it. This could destroy the town they couldn't keep it secret! He knew that…didn't he? "They need to know, Rumple. Now. She could cast that spell at any time! We would all be-"

"Yes, yes, I see, but I…I understand," he conceded quickly, with a small fixed nod. There. It was only a simple mix up, she was sure of it. Or…she was sure of it…wasn't she? All he'd needed to see was logic and reason. Right? "I can go with you, if you'd like," he suggested suddenly, "to find Emma and Elsa."

Her heart bled again. More of what she didn't deserve after today. She wanted his comfort, his support. She wanted him to go with her and stand by her side and even tell them for her…but she couldn't have it. She couldn't be the pathetic coward she clearly feared that she was inside. That small thought had ruled her life for too long! "I think…" she took a deep breath, then nodded with determination, she knew what was right. "I think this is something that I need to do…alone."

He gave her another nod and quick, almost disappointed smile. "I understand." He did? Really? He understood when all was said and done?! After everything?! She felt a relieved smile break over her face as she reached out, threw her arms around his neck and buried her head, and her tears, in his chest again. She didn't deserve to have his trust back, at least not like she'd had it this morning before all the chaos had happened. But it appeared that she did any way. "Thank you," she choked. "Thank you for understanding everything."

"I'd be a fool not to," he answered back. She couldn't bring herself to figure out the meaning behind that so as soon as she left his arms she went out into the main room and grabbed her bag, determined to take the car to go see Elsa, but she stopped at the realization of the weight within it.

Somehow, at some point today, he'd made sure the dagger had found it's way back inside it.

This scene was just so nice right up until that last little bit there when we realize that things are not nearly as taken care of as I'm sure we would all like them to be. Am I right? I did my best to catch them both up on what was going on in their lives and in the town (because the others certainly don't include them), but I don't know if I was effective enough. Your thoughts?

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Kathryn Claire O'Connor, Fox24, Meredith Pechta, Ladybugsmomma, PaigeJillian, Rumbellefan, Deweymay, Kagi-chan2, Skitzoeinhoven, and Raizen Yusuke for your reviews on the last chapter and for your faithfulness in reviewing. It is your lovely thoughts that constantly let me know that this series is going well and I'm always so pleased whenever I get word from you all! Peace and Happy Reading!