"Belle!" called out Gold from downstairs of the entranceway. He leaned up against the wall as he struggled to walk towards the stairway of his home.

"Hun," he called out again and when she didn't respond he ascended the stairway slowly toward their bedroom. He opened the door and discovered Belle lying in bed curled up in blankets with her back towards him.

"Darling…," he said softly, sitting down next to the vacant spot by her legs. He eased his weight down on the mattress and rested his available hand on her waist. He rubbed her sides gently over the sheets trying to comfort her and sighed, lowering his voice, "…Darling, why didn't you tell me who your mother was?"

"I would think it would be obvious," muffled Belle's voice through the comforter.

He paused for a moment, trying to think of how to address the issue. "What happened? You said she abandoned you," he delicately asked.

"The last time I saw her I was seven. The last thing I remember was her saying to me that she was going to go away for a while and that she would be coming back, but she never did. And when she never returned, everyone was convinced that she had died… but I never believed it." Belle resituated herself in bed, turning over onto her back to better look at her husband, who was listening intently. "I loved her so much, Rumple. She took me places… the world! I saw so many… fantastic things. We were close and our relationship was, in short, wonderful. I always listened to her and did as I was told, never giving her any trouble. I tried not to give her any reason to not love me. So why would she leave me?"

"I don't know sweetheart," he said honestly. He knew, first hand, what it was like as a parent to abandon his child. And although he didn't want to admit it out loud to Belle, he was pretty sure that Mary Poppins had her reasons as well. Based off of his intuition, he knew that there had to be more history between her and her mother, so he proceeded, "but now that she's here, you now have an opportunity to find out from her. All you need to do is just ask her."

She turned her face away from him. She knew he was right, but didn't want to admit it. She was looked pensively off in another direction and he could see from the red in her eyes that she was still in pain emotionally. He leaned forward and brushed the side of her face sweetly with his fingers, bringing her attention back to his loving eyes, "I loved Baelfire. Even when I made the worst decision of my life in letting him go, I never stopped loving him. I'm positive that your mother loves you very much as well. Give her a chance to explain herself. It's what I would want if I was her. You might discover that there's more to her tale than what you were originally led to believe."

"You think so?"

"I'm sure of it."

Belle thought heavily on Rumple's comment, realizing that what she was feeling now was what Neal was probably feeling when he met his father again in New York, "I never got the chance to ask… about when you went to see Neal in New York. How did it go?"

"Well… just like how you are feeling right now, he wasn't inclined to listen either, but thanks to Emma I was eventually able to start a dialogue with him. It was slow moving, but at least I was given a chance. I know your mother is part of the reason you're so anxious about motherhood. So if anything, you need this closure. You owe it to yourself to find out. And if not for yourself, then do it for our child because this cycle of abandonment needs to end and it needs to end with us," he said.

Belle nodded in agreement; another fair point. "And, if I may request," he added, pointing his finger in the air as if what he was about to say next would be contested, "since Mary Poppins is your mother… I'd actually like to continue having her around."

Belle raised an incredulous eyebrow. He smirked.

"Can you blame me? I finally have an in-law I actually like," he admitted honestly.

"Yeah… about that… I uh, noticed how chummy you and my mum were back at the shop. Like…," she said reaching for his gesturing hand. She held it lovingly within her own and their two hands rested over her belly, "you two were old friends? I only ask because I've never known you to trust strangers so easily. So how did you come to know my mother?"

"Oh, that. I knew her a long, long time ago… back before being cursed, before being the Dark One, before Milah. I was a much younger lad then. A very sad and very confused young man and Mary… your mother happened to save me from making a fatal mistake and she helped correct the direction of my life."

A fatal mistake? A course correction in his life? Belle wondered what the mistake was that nearly cost him his life or the life direction she convinced him to take. She knew that whatever the experience was it merited his trust immediately; something nobody she knew had. Even when they first met she never even had his trust. She had to earn it. In fact, as she thought about it some more, she knew of no one in any realm that had this kind of trust from him the way her mother did, and she suddenly found herself envious of her own mother, "Are you saying you trust her?"

"With my life," he replied most sincerely. His genuine reply astounded her. Belle finally understood why he wanted her mother to be their nanny.

"Wow, that's… pretty unbelievable."

"Your mother is quite a remarkable woman."

"Well, she certainly made quite the impression with you," remarked Belle bitterly.

"She has," he replied, picking up on her distaste, "but I can't help but wonder why you would be upset by that."

"I'm not upset with you, it's her. Look… you see those books over there," she said pointing to the exposed books in her purse by her dresser. "I found those books in the library," she said, trying to explain to her husband her justifications for being upset. He leaned forward from off the bed and quickly grabbed one of the books she was referencing from the nearby dresser. He opened the book and began perusing through the pages as she continued explaining, "I wasn't always upset with her. I'm just… heartbroken that she lied to me and never chose to come back to me. Instead, she chose to come back to these children."

"Belle, you know better than to believe everything you read from the books of this world," Rumple pointed out to her.

"I know, I just… I had never known much about her, only that her name was Mary Poppins and that she was beautiful and brilliant and perfect and lovely. I always wanted to know more about her, about this near-perfect woman. Growing up, the royal staff was forbidden to talk to me about her and my father... well, whenever I'd ask him about her we would always end up arguing until we were both so upset that we wouldn't speak to each other for days."

He continued skimming through the pages of the book, looking up every so often to show that he was still listening and paying attention to her. She continued, noticing his multi-tasking abilities, "I had thought… that I could try to seek her out in the books of this world. I mean, in some incarnation everyone else was. Why not her? No one would give me answers. I needed to know her and there she was… in my library and in multiple volumes! Finally, answers to my questions about her. I was so excited to see who she was, but when I saw what she had done… taking care of all those children. I became jealous and angry. What was she doing taking care of them, and not me?"

"… magic," he said without looking up from one of the books.

"Magic? What does magic have to deal with this?" questioned Belle.

"No, I mean… according to this book, she uses magic. Even when I met her she…" he wanted to say that 'she had used magic', but when he thought about it, he never actually saw her use it. He remembered that cliff and staring up at her as she pulled him up. He recalled the vines moving peculiarly around him to assist her, but the wind was particularly strong that day too and could have explained the movement. He thought about the story she told him; her story. Was it just a story? He, of all people, knew that stories could be easily fabricated. Could she have lied to him about being a goddess? No. The way she explained her magic may have been convoluted, but he felt for certain that Mary Poppins was magical.

"Well… your mother uses magic," he said stating simply, "Which means that there could have been magical reasons preventing her from coming back to you. Believe me, I know plenty of curses that can do what you speak of. And if that's true, then that meansmagic runs in your family; which means, my dear, that you are magical too."

"I doubt that very much. I've never done anything magical."

"That's not true. Remember you did enact that protection spell over Storybrooke when I left for Neverland and you were able to figure out my message in the sand dollar I sent to you for Pandora's Box. Perhaps… you were never given the actual opportunity to learn or even try and perhaps with the proper instruction you could be."

"Rumple, you know my feelings on magic."

"You can deny your lineage all you want, but just so you know, traits and abilities are also known to skip a generation…" he said looking down at her stomach, his eyes alluding to their unborn child. She looked up at him incredulously. Rumple looked at his wife, "Hey, I promised you I would let you know about our child's magical abilities as soon as I did. And so far, I've kept my promise."

She looked at their hands on her swollen belly, their fingers interlocked with one another, and smiled kindly for keeping his promise. Rumple assumed that Belle had seen her mother use magic, but he wanted to know for certain that she did. To resolve his own doubts about Mary's magic he asked her directly, "Did you know about your mother's abilities? I mean, you have seen your mother use magic before, right?"

"I'm going to be honest Rumple, she may have been magical, but I was really young and it was so long ago. She could have used magic, but I could have easily mistaken something coincidentally for magic… so no, I don't remember ever seeing her use magic."

"How is that even possible?" Rumple questioned out loud. How could they both believe in Mary's magic, yet have never seen her use it?

Belle snorted at the question, "You're asking the wrong person. Ask The Practically Perfect Person. I'm sure she'll have an answer for everything. See? Now can you understand my frustration with her? I mean, who can relate to her? No one. Even as a child I can remember talking to her and it always ended up with her getting her way."

"I'm confused," he remarked, noticing her bitterness again. "Are you upset with her now because she left you, or are you upset because your mother's perfect?"

"Practically perfect… and No," she corrected emphatically, slightly insulted that Rumple insinuated correctly about her jealously. "I'm just afraid she'll be impossible to talk to."

At the word 'impossible', Rumple immediately thought about Mary's Impossible Possible spell and the qualities she needed to find in her destined caster: true love… unwavering faith… must not have seen her use magic. He knew when he initially offered to enact Mary's spell that he was disqualified due to his skepticism, but could she? Could Belle be the one to cast Mary's spell? Mary's own daughter? Perhaps with this new found knowledge he could use it as leverage to benefit them both. Perhaps… Belle would be the one to bring magic back to Storybrooke.

He encouraged with a knowing-scheming smile, "It's only impossible until it isn't. Go talk to her."

… …

Mary had never explored Storybrooke before, but her intuition and her sense of smell directed her from Gold's shop to the town's Flower Shop. Perhaps it was her heart guiding her, but she knew she was heading in the right direction. The walls surrounding the entrance way to the Flower Shop were covered in thick vines. Despite the chilly weather, when Mary arrived to the door her favorite flowers bloomed and blossomed before her eyes.

"He remembered," she thought. Maurice still carried her favorite flowers. She smiled as she opened the door and entered his shop.


Hey guys, sorry again for the long gap of time between chapters. This was, again, one of those chapters that I repetitively went through with a fine-toothed comb to iron out details. Thank you for your patience. And thank you to Imusicluver23, Grace5231973, carpelibrum, Montreat11 and BreathingintheSun for your reviews! If I don't post again sometime soon, I wish you all a happy and safe holiday! Cheers mates. See you next chapter!