7 Months, 3 Weeks, 4 Days

"Belle!" Ruby called from outside. If she was going, she was going. It may as well be sooner rather than later.

"I'm coming!" she called back, wiping her eyes and standing up. Carefully she placed the pillow back on the bed, neatly, as it should have been and smiled down at her work. Perfect. Just as it should be. "This isn't good-bye," she promised the empty air. "I'm not giving up. I'll do everything in my power to bring you back here. Both of you! I promise." She wiped her eyes again, sniffled and took a deep breath, preparing herself to go when-

"Belle, now!" Ruby screamed impatiently. The small smile that had been growing on her face vanished when she heard the tone. Ruby was screaming for her. Not yelling. Her stomach turned. Something was wrong.

She nearly ran out of the house, to the front yard to find Ruby. Her eyes widened at what she saw. Ruby. Trapped. The Wicked Witch held her just outside the protected circle. Rumple's dagger to her throat. She would have thought she was in a dream if it wasn't for the fact that not even she could dream up something so terrible!

"At last," Zelena smiled. "Now we can talk! Woman to woman. You can go," she informed Ruby almost kindly, giving her a small shove back into the circle and making her stumble. Ruby fell face down into the grass and she quickly ran toward her, helping her off the ground.

"I'm fine," she insisted. "Watch the monkey's."

Monkeys. Of course. Zelena was a coward she never traveled alone. Belle cast her eyes into the trees behind Zelena and up into the canopy. One. Two. Three. She turned as she saw movement behind her and a horse neighed nervously, pulling on it's lead to get free. A monkey had landed on the roof. Four. Still Zelena stayed outside the protective circle. Did that mean that animals could come into the circle but Zelena couldn't?

"What are you doing here?" she asked the green-skinned woman who was watching her with interested eyes. "What do you want?"

"Take a deep breath, Sweetie," the witch cooed, looking at her with a innocent questioning eyes, as if she was genuinely over reacting to her presence. "Wouldn't want to wrinkle that pretty little face of yours. Not that the Dark One would recognize it if he saw it. Sadly his mind is a bit scrambled at the moment."

"What are you doing here?! she demanded, fighting the small flare of happiness that her taunt had given her. Regina was wrong. Rumple was still alive!

"Looking for you, of course!"

"To kill me?" she questioned.

Zelena rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't be so dramatic," she drawled. "I've had a change of heart about that. Or a change of mind, I guess you could say."

"What does that mean?"

Zelena smiled sweetly at her, her gaze was unnerving. "I'll let you put that one together on your own. After all you were smart enough to figure out the vault on your…oh, I forgot. You weren't. Hefty price on that lack of intelligence. Oh…sorry dear, I didn't mean to drudge up the past-"

"Then what did you intend?" she demanded, tired of her games.

"Just to have a simple conversation."

"Then have it!" she snapped. "What do you want with me?"

Zelena glared at her. She looked her over, her eyes sweeping over her small frame from head to toe before sneering as if there was something funny about her that only she was privy to. "Tell me, what does the Dark One see in you exactly?" she finally questioned with insulting curiosity. "What perfect little trait do you possess that makes him jump to your will? He's too smart to fall for nothing but long eyelashes and rosy cheeks."

"Why don't you ask him yourself?"

"Well because I'm here!" Zelena piqued throwing her arms out. "Asking you! What do you have that all the others didn't have?" Others. Milah, Cora, and...no. Zelena wasn't...was she? Did it matter in the end? He'd chosen her and the reasons he'd fallen in love with her had nothing to do with long eyelashes and rosy cheeks.

"That's private!" she stated through clenched teeth. She wasn't about to give the intimate details of their relationship to Zelena, especially not details that they only uncovered to one another in the privacy of their own home! Their shop! And certainly not what they shared in their bed!

"Nothing is private anymore, dear…of course, if you insist on me asking him I suppose I always could..." Zelena held the dagger up and cast it a sly glance, one that made her skin crawl. "But I doubt very much you want it to come to something like that."

"Don't hurt him!" she insisted, eyeing the dagger, it's distance, Zelena's grip. How hard would it be to grab it from her hand?!

"Then answer the question!" the witch suddenly screamed at her, taking an impatient step toward her…a step into the circle. Her blood chilled as she tried not to register her shock on her face. Zelena could get in. Which could only mean two things. Either Zelena meant her no harm, which she seriously doubted given her bulging eyes, or her suspicion that the house and castle were no longer safe had been correct all along. The barriers were gone. Even if she could take the dagger, she could kill her with a wave of her hand before she could use it. Which meant the only thing she could really count on to save herself and Ruby, was to answer her questions and hope she'd leave.

"He was always stubborn, always ignorant to the feelings of everyone else around him," Zelena snapped, her tirade suggesting something between the two of them but she wasn't sure if she was ready to pin the same title on them as she had to Cora. Something had happened, she just wasn't sure what. "So how is it someone like you can render the Dark One speechless with so little effort!"

"We're good for each other," she explained quickly, hoping it would ease the unpredictable woman but leaving a sour taste in her mouth.

Zelena only snorted as she looked her over with a wrinkled disgusted nose. "That's a pathetic and cliché answer. One steeped in myth and fairy tales-"

"It's the only one I have to offer you," she insisted. "We're good for each other. We understand each other, who we are. We're closer than most people ever will be and closer than anyone, friends or family, will ever be to either of us. No one else sees us the way we do."

"And what, exactly, is it you see in each other?" No. She couldn't answer that. She wouldn't, that was personal. Too personal! "What do you see?!" Zelena asked taking another unstable step toward her and brandishing the dagger as if it had the power to command her and not Rumpelstiltskin.

She stepped back, pressured by the woman who was acting more like a woman scorned than a wicked witch. She hated to answer her, to give it away, but Rumple needed her alive and she hated what might happen if she had to ask Rumple, how damaging it would be if she forced him to answer her questions!

"He's good," she stated angrily. "He's loyal and misunderstood by everybody including himself! No matter what you make him say, no matter what you make him do, he doesn't want to say or do it."

"Well of course not. If he did I wouldn't need this now would I?"

"What do you want with him?" she asked.

"Same thing I want with that baby and my sister's heart-"

"And David's sword?"

Zelena smiled. "If I had less than half a brain I might admit to that," she smiled, "and accidentally reveal my grand plan to you without every stopping to think about what I was doing. But I'm smarter than that, I've learned from the mistakes of others past failures! Confident as I am in my plan I'm not so stupid as to reveal it to just anyone, least of all some starry-eyed love sick girl…" she drawled looking her over in a way that made her want to step forward and claw at her. She'd only felt an irrational reaction like that once in her life before, the time he'd told her that he'd considered having a child with Cora. No. This conversation. The way she looked at her. It couldn't be jealousy…could it?!

"Belle move!" Ruby suddenly yelled. Too many things happened at once. Ruby pulled a dagger out of her boot. She expertly flipped the blade over in her hand, then tossed it. She took a step away from the witch at it soared toward her head…and stopped. It hung there in mid-air inches from her face, stopped by an unseen force as Zelena controlled it with her hand in the air. With the smallest of gestures, the loss of tension in her hand, the dagger dropped to the grass with a pathetic thud. And without any thought she waved her hand at Ruby and sent her flying across the lawn.

"Nice try, dear," the witch smiled back at Ruby. "Next time you or anyone tries that it'll end up in your grandmother's skull!" she threatened.

"You're lucky it's not a full moon!" Ruby growled, struggling for breath.

"Heel, girl," Zelena sneered. "There's no need for that! I'll be on my way, just passing through after all. I've got much more important things to do with my time than dispose of the two of you. And besides…I'll be seeing you soon enough," she commented glancing back at her with a sweet smile that made her hands flex into fists. "Come lovelies, we've got somewhere to be," she muttered, walking out of the circle. Her monkey's followed her. The one on the roof glided down to her and another one in the trees soared down to her, dropping a broomstick into her outstretched hands.

"This won't work!" she yelled after her. She couldn't let her leave! Not like that. She couldn't let her have the last word, let her threaten everyone she knew and everyone she loved, insult her and the love she felt for her prisoner. She couldn't let it be that easy. "Whatever you're planning, whatever you're trying to do…it'll fail! You can't do this and expect to walk away unscathed."

"I think you'll find, that thanks to you and the Dark One's son, I can!" she smiled back at her, looking amused at her comments. "I've got him in the place where you're true love can't reach him."

"I refused to believe that," she insisted. "You won't win. You won't!"

The witch looked at her and smiled again, then began marching up the hill small incline, across the protection line, menacing step after step. "Let's go over this again, shall we? I have the Dark One's dagger," she growled. "I have his son, his castle, and beyond that there is no one powerful enough to stop me. Unless of course you want to try though we both know how that will end. Haven't you figured it out yet, dear? I could kill you now, with little effort, but death would be too easy and there are no other ways to make the Dark One bend. You, dear girl are my insurance. Anyone tries to stand in my way and I'll send the Dark One to kill you himself, then I'll excise that troublesome son of his and leave him to know that it was because of him that the two people he cared most about in the entire world died because of him.

"I might not know him as well as you do but I don't exactly see him taking too well to that. Do you?" She clenched her jaw together, kept her eyes on Zelena's and made sure that her hands stayed by her sides. She used every ounce of focus that she had into keeping her mouth shut and not rising to Zelena's level, not responding. She wouldn't cower behind a threat like that. She wouldn't fear something so cruel. And she certainly wouldn't lower herself to Zelena's hallow threats…especially when she'd just made an important mistake.

"I'll pass my greetings on to Rumpelstiltskin for you. Not that I'd expect him to reply…he doesn't even seem to know who he is at the moment," the woman sneered, before kicking off from the ground and flying away on her broom, leaving her feeling like the woman she'd once been months ago.


So...did anyone catch it? The important mistake that Zelena made?! It's a big one, one that can tip the scales, not enough to win yet but certainly gives them an advantage! And does anyone know why she was questioning Belle? Was it jealousy? Was it something more? Could it be both? I supposed we'll have to keep reading to find out. Or should I say you'll have to keep reading as I already know. Ah the joys of being the Author!

Big, big, big thank yous to Meredith Pechta, Ladybugsmomma, Raizen Yusuke, Kathryn Claire O'Connor, Rumbellefan, and Skitzoeinhoven for saying such lovely things about the last chapter. I'm happy that we're all on bored for this turn and that we're looking forward to the future! Peace and Happy Reading!