-Flashback-
"You'll never guess who's found us," Red said, out of breath and with that ever-present worried look more evident than usual. Snow had time only to struggle to her feet with Granny's help before the dwarfs dragged an unprotesting prisoner under the shade of the oak tree where Snow had been resting. Snow knew who it was even before Grumpy whipped the bag off her head and she found herself looking into the dark eyes of her sister for the first time in…how long? (Too long, a part of her thought, the little girl part who once idolized and adored Regina; not long enough, thought the more pragmatic side of her that had been allowed to grow loud and strong during all her time on the run.)
"Regina," Snow heard herself say (too gladly). She thought there was a flash of relief, or maybe happiness (but how would Snow recognize that in Regina when she'd never really seen it in her?) before she resumed the impassive mask that she always wore around Cora.
A tremor of revulsion shook Snow so hard her stomach actually tightened and she had to rub a calming hand over the resulting tantrum. She was not Cora. She was good. A hero. And heroes had to be strong. Had to do what was best for everyone, not just for the ghost of the stepsister who'd been so kind once upon a time.
"She claims she has a warning of some sort to give us," Grumpy said. No need to wonder what he thought of all this; the distrust in his voice was enough to fill the entire hidden clearing where they'd set up camp when Snow could ride no longer.
"It's more than likely a trap," Granny declared. "No good can come from playing into it."
There was a toughness to Granny that Snow often found comforting (that she aspired to, really), but this time, it irked her. Maybe because she knew Granny was only really concerned with the fact that Snow couldn't travel any farther now that her daughter was ready to come bursting into the world at any moment. And Snow hated being the weak link, the one slowing everyone else down should a trap really spring on them.
"She must have known the risks in coming." With a flutter of his wings, Jiminy hopped up on Geppetto's shoulder. The old man didn't seem to notice, more concerned with keeping his little boy behind him, outside of Regina's notice. "Whatever she has to say could be important. The least we can do is hear her out."
Relief nearly overwhelmed Snow when Charming burst into the clearing with Happy struggling to keep up. He took in the situation at a glance (their flimsy war-council all arrayed against each other, Regina silent in the middle, Snow exhausted and trying to hide it, her legs trembling, her hand sweaty against her stomach).
"Friends, we should deliberate on this," Charming said with the ease of a King. He walked straight up to Grumpy and easily took his place holding onto Regina's bound arms. "But Snow knows Regina best of all of us. If anyone can figure out the truth here, it's her. Let's give them a few minutes to talk so she can tell us what to make of it."
There were grumbled protests and muttered doubts, but like the shepherd he truly was, David ushered everyone else away until it was only Snow, Regina, and himself inside their tent. As soon as he closed the flap between them and the rest of the camp (he'd sent Red and Granny farthest away, Snow noticed; no need to risk them overhearing), Snow cut Regina's bonds free and hugged her as closely as her swollen stomach allowed.
"It's so good to see you," she exclaimed.
Regina tensed (she always did, at the beginning of a hug) and then wrapped her arms around Snow and held on for a long moment. David set his hand on Regina's shoulder comfortingly, and they both felt the resulting shudder ripple down her spine.
"Why are you here?" Charming asked. "I thought you said it'd be too dangerous for us to see you again before…"
"It's starting," Regina said. "Mother went to see the Spinner this morning. When she came back, she said she had everything she needed. And then…"
"Regina, what is it?"
"The last ingredient." Regina curled in on herself and shook. Snow wanted to pull her close, wrap her in love and security, but a kick from her baby had her wincing, David's arm moving to support her lower back where she'd been aching for the past couple days. "It's the thing you love most."
"I didn't think Cora loved anything," Snow said caustically. She regretted it when she saw Regina wince.
"She…she went up to the tower."
David exchanged a quick glance with Snow. "The tower… You don't think…"
"I think there's a reason the Spinner helped Cora retrieve Daddy from Wonderland. And I think this must be it."
"So she's going to sacrifice Henry?" David's hold tightened on Snow, as if to protect her (and Snow wished she could let him; wished that their fate had involved anything but this, fugitives on the run, already foreseeing their own defeat). "And then…"
"And then we'll all be her prisoners in a world where there are no happy endings."
Privately, Snow wasn't so sure that this world allowed happy endings either. Happy middles, yes, a thousand times yes (David's smile, and the way he threw himself between her and any danger, and the look in his eyes when she'd told him she loved him; the feel of his mouth pressed to hers, waking her from nightmares; the ring he'd slipped so lovingly onto her finger; the baby growing and thriving inside her). But not happy endings.
Reminded of what she was about to have to give up, Snow wrapped her own arms around her stomach and tried to hold on.
"Only for twenty-eight years."
David whirled, his sword drawn in an eye-blink, and Snow felt a wrench low in her stomach as she stumbled to face the voice. Regina, curiously, didn't react at all.
Rumplestiltskin, lounging backward on a chair she knew he hadn't been occupying a second ago, sneered at David's weapon.
"You remember what must be," the Spinner said, so conversationally Snow had to concentrate to remember he was talking about the devastation of her small family. "It's the only hope you all have."
"It's the only hope she has," Snow whispered.
At her words (at the truth), David sheathed his sword, his shoulders infinitesimally slumped.
"I didn't expect to see you here," Rumplestiltskin commented, his eyes locked on Regina.
She refused to meet his gaze. "I couldn't stay. She's going to kill Daddy. I can't…I can't just stand by and watch."
"Some lookout you are," he said without rancor.
Snow scowled and moved to stand beside Regina when, suddenly, she felt something wet and strange drip from her. An instant later, a spasm of white-hot pain lanced through her.
"Charming!" she cried.
He was there in an instant, Regina just beside him, both of them supporting her toward the bed.
Rumplestiltskin stood, casually, and moved toward the tent-flap. "Well, just in time. At least we know she's apt to be prompt. I'll send someone in to help, shall I?"
"Where are you going?" David snapped. "This isn't supposed to happen yet! The wardrobe only takes two!"
"Yes, yes, time for me to make sure the puppet boy knows his duty." Rumplestiltskin tilted his head to study Snow and Charming (and Regina, too, though she continued to ignore him). "I told you when this began that it would require sacrifices."
David leapt to his feet and rushed forward. Snow nearly cried out in fear (in pain, sweeping down from the top of her stomach to the pit of it), but all he did, when he reached the Spinner, was put his hand on his arm and lower his voice. "She's my daughter. My little baby. You never said we'd have to send her alone. I thought Snow would—"
"You listened to me when I said to flee your kingdom," Rumplestiltskin said as he fastidiously removed David's hand from his arm. "You listened when Regina told you when and where to run to stay ahead of Cora. You listened when the Blue Fairy found you that enchanted tree. You listened when Geppetto begged and pleaded for his little boy. Don't tell me you're going to stop being sensible now."
"I can't lose them," David said, and there was something so dark, so low, in his voice that Snow wanted to wrap him up in her arms and never let him go (but she couldn't; she could barely think past her terror and the pain and Regina's soft instructions to breathe to even process the conversation happening a few feet away). "They're my family, Rumplestiltskin."
The Spinner's eyes were too large, too dark, too remote. "We all have to sacrifice, Shepherd-King. Do you want your daughter to be trapped at the mercy of the Heartless Queen? Or do you want to help save your whole world?"
Another spasm rippled across Snow's world, and the next thing she knew, David was at her side, his hand wrapped in hers, his face intent on her through tears that kept streaming down in an endless rain. Regina was there, then Doc, Granny, maybe Red, but maybe not, because at one point, Snow thought she saw her mother too, smiling down at her and telling her she would be wise and kind and brave.
It was enough, somehow, to keep her pushing and breathing and screaming until finally, finally, David let out a sobbing breath and told her they had a daughter.
A peal of thunder rattled through her, a last aftershock she could hardly concentrate on while David and Doc were fussing with a little bundle, wrapped in the blanket Granny had knitted while they'd run, endlessly, from Cora's malevolent hunt.
"Let me see her," Snow gasped. "I want to see her."
Regina was at the tent-flap, staring out, as if oblivious to the little baby girl so tiny, so beautiful, in Charming's arms. "It's done," she intoned. A gust of wind tore through the tent, but Snow didn't care, couldn't care, not now that David had placed her baby (tiny and helpless and perfect) in her arms.
"Emma," she whispered.
"She looks like you," Charming whispered.
"We have to hurry," Regina said, suddenly hurrying toward them. Granny tried to get in between them, but Regina's hand sliced through the air and Granny was suddenly asleep on the chair next to their table covered in maps and half-formed plans to take back a kingdom they'd voluntarily relinquished on the Spinner's word.
Snow blinked, blinked again, tried to concentrate—but Emma yawned, and she couldn't concentrate on anything but that little squished face and the warmth of her seeping through into Snow's chest (deep, deep into her heart, where not even a curse could extract it).
"Snow," Charming said. Quietly. Sadly.
"No," she whimpered. "Not yet. Not yet. Just let me look at her."
"We don't have time," Regina insisted. "The curse is taking this world a piece at a time, but it's headed this way fast."
"Maybe…" Charming began, but Snow's heart was cold in her chest.
She had to be brave. Strong. A hero. And heroes always did the right thing, no matter the cost.
"She has to go," she said. She met David's eyes, red and frantic and desperate. "We have to give her her best chance."
How many times had Snow depended on Charming's faith in some better way? His absolute determination that everything would turn out for the best? His devotion to hope and belief and optimism? So many times. It was one of the reasons she'd first fallen in love with him, when he laughed at her and mocked her and saved her life over and over again with never a hint of resentment at all the hurts she caused him.
And now she was the one who had to shatter that hope.
There was no better way.
(There was no escape from duty. From responsibility. From heroism.)
"David," she said. "We have to let her go."
Because David always listened to her.
He squeezed his eyes shut, bent over her and the baby, pressed his lips against Emma's round little head, and nodded. "Find us," he implored their daughter.
Emma cooed, and Snow felt something ripping inside her chest, just behind her breastbone.
"Take her," she made herself say. "Get her to the wardrobe."
"Maybe you could go instead of Pinocchio," David tried to say, but they both knew better.
"Children adjust better to change," the Spinner had told them. "She'll need a guide that knows the world. He'll need a reason to keep believing in fairytales."
Snow wasn't sure if he really meant those words or if he'd simply made his own deal with Geppetto (the old craftsman had looked far too triumphant, too relieved, and he'd avoided spending any time alone with Snow or Charming since they'd decided to let Pinocchio go through the wardrobe), but there was no going back now. They'd already given up too much.
"Charming," it was all she said, but David already knew. He nodded again, pressed a hurried kiss to her mouth (so many of their kisses had been hurried, quick, adrenaline-edged; would they ever have time for languorous embraces and explorative kisses?), and then took Emma back into his arms.
Snow nearly shrieked at the loss of the precious weight. Her hands reached, searching, searching, and found Regina instead.
"I'll help you up," she whispered.
"She's my baby," Snow cried.
"I know."
"I love her."
"I know."
Snow gritted her teeth against the pain as Regina helped her outside the tent where the rest of the camp was in an uproar, staring up at a green-split sky, wracked with sickly clouds and devouring magic.
"I have to let her go," she said.
"I know."
David was just ahead, rushing even as he tossed glances back over his shoulder to her slower progress. It took them far too long to make it past the clearing into a thicket where trees formed a natural defense. The wardrobe Geppetto had worked tireless hours on stood, elaborate and imposing (the object of Snow's nightmares for months).
Geppetto was weeping, Jiminy fluttering uselessly on his shoulder, while the Spinner knelt before a little red-haired boy Snow suddenly hated with a vehemence that astonished her. He was just a child, innocent and young and so scared as he stared up at the terrifying Rumplestiltskin. But he would get to be with her daughter while she grew up. He'd get to hear her first words, see her take her first steps; he'd laugh with her and comfort her and protect her and be everything to her that Snow should get to be.
(He wouldn't have to find her, or be found by her, because he'd get to stay with her every day.)
David made it to the wardrobe. Pinocchio threw himself at his father (he didn't want to go; Snow did—this wasn't fair). The little door opened to reveal a hollow within the trunk of the tree.
"Remember, she'll return to you on her twenty-eighth birthday," the Spinner told David.
Snow couldn't move. She could only hang from Regina's strong grip as Charming kissed Emma once more on the head, whispered something into her ear, and then placed her in Pinocchio's chubby little arms. The boy was still crying, sobbing now, (Papa! Papa! and is that what Emma would have called Charming, stumbling to him on pudgy legs and laughing when he caught her up into the air?) and Jiminy hopped up to whisper in his ear, but Snow doubted the boy could hear anything past the screaming wind and his own sobs.
And hers. She was weeping. Screaming. Regina was all that kept her upright (all that kept her from lunging forward and prying her baby from the puppet's ungrateful hands).
"You're so strong," Regina murmured in her ear, and it was so surprising a statement that Snow actually fell silent (silent save the heaving sobs that tore stitches through her abused pelvis). "I don't think I could ever be as strong as you."
Snow looked at Regina. Her sister. The woman who'd saved her life over and over again, who'd stayed loyal to her at her own expense, who'd remained at her mother's side despite the risks solely to ensure Snow and David's safety.
"You could," she said. "If you had a child, Regina, you could do anything."
A hollow look (so much more familiar than any fleeting happiness) washed over Regina's features, and she looked away. Snow looked back to the wardrobe.
Emma was gone.
Somehow, while she'd been distracted, Emma and Pinocchio had gone through into a world she couldn't reach.
The agony of it nearly undid her.
At her keening cry, David was there, weeping as he pulled her into his chest and folded himself around her. Snow tried to focus on him, but all she could see was the wardrobe (useless now, just a lump of dead wood) over his shoulder. And the Spinner, standing alone, tall and defiant even as he leaned on his crutch, the most upright figure in the thicket (Geppetto wept at his feet, Regina huddled in on herself, all alone, Snow and Charming had fallen in an intertwined huddle), watching them with a smile.
As if this were a victory.
As if this were everything he'd ever wanted.
As if everything was falling perfectly into place.
(And despite all her doubts, her second thoughts, her immediate regrets, she knew she had no choice but to believe him. To believe that she'd given up her baby for a reason. That she'd see her again, one day, and finally get to hold her again.)
"She'll find us," David whispered, so strong, so hopeful.
Snow clung to that strength as the storm enveloped her and swept her away into nothingness she couldn't help but embrace.
(Because no matter what the other world offered, it had to be better than this.)
-Storybrooke-
It's cold. David squints and tries to locate the source of the chill, but it's all around him. Is he outside?
No. No, he remembers a fever raging through him, so fierce, so destructive, that he'd come close to actually calling Dr. Whale (any time left is a gift, David, just remember that). He didn't, though, did he? Yes, he remembers. There was a knock at the door, over and over again, insistent, incessant, until he found the strength to stumble from his bed to the door.
And then… And then…
Emma. Her name had shot through him like lightning and he blinked himself aware enough to see her staring at him as if he were a ghost (not yet, but soon, any minute now, he's sure). She asked him questions he couldn't catch hold of (each one a balloon, sailing so far away, out of reach, out of sight) and stepped forward. He remembered that he didn't want to back up because the cool air flowing in felt so good against his fiery skin.
Cool air. The cold. David squints again and realizes he is outside. He recognizes the sprawling brick building in front of him, though he can't place it just now. More immediate is the cold pressing in on him from all sides. He imagines it armoring him against pain and fear and loneliness.
He doesn't want to die alone.
Emma had been there. He's sure he didn't imagine her. He remembers that she smelled of hot chocolate and donuts and a trace of car oil. He remembers that there were tears in her eyes when she looked at him. He hates seeing her upset so he forced himself to say something comforting. What had he said?
It escapes him, but it doesn't matter. Eventually, she smiled, and stepped forward, and instead of backing away into the heated solitude of his empty apartment, David stayed where he was and opened his arms.
And Emma had stepped into his embrace.
He thinks that maybe she was seeking comfort (the support she told him she needs as sheriff, and he knows well how heavy that position can be), but instead, she gave it to him. He felt stronger, with her clinging to him.
It's strange, really, now that he thinks of it. Emma's young and beautiful, strong and admirable, but David's never seen her as a woman, not really. She's broken, but healed, but vulnerable, but so deserving of every good thing, and he's only ever felt protective or proud of her.
Almost paternal.
David closes his eyes against encroaching frost and sees a baby in his arms. She has wide blue-green eyes and is wrapped in a white blanket stitched through with purple. She's so small and so warm and so perfect that his heart actually aches inside his chest.
It's too cold out here for a baby.
When David moves to shrug the baby into his jacket, he finds only cold air in his arms. There is no baby. For some reason, this makes him want to break down and sob (maybe just because he doesn't want to be alone anymore).
Just in case he isn't hallucinating, David forces himself to his knees and looks around for any baby that might have rolled away from his weak arms.
Nothing. Just bare grass, whitened by cold, stiff against his knees. Just that building in front of him, empty where there should be kids pouring in and out the doors.
Kids. A school. Yes, he's somehow found himself in front of the school—where Mary Margaret works.
He remembers. When the fever spiked so high he became convinced he was literally on fire, when he knew that he had finally run out of time…he could only think of one person. The one person he wants to see before he closes his eyes for the last time.
Mary Margaret.
Somehow, he's found his way here, but he's made a mistake. School's out, she's not here, and he doesn't think he'll be able to make it to his feet again.
His time's up.
David tries to envision Mary Margaret in front of him. Green eyes, so kind and happy (sad and confused; remote and resolute). Dark hair cut so close to the curve of her head that it makes him want to cup his hand there and feel the weight of her trust. The sharp chin that he once noticed Emma shares. In fact, he felt that same sharp chin poking against his shoulder when he hugged Emma, there in his doorway.
She felt so small in his arms (almost as small as that baby) and it had been so long since anyone had touched David, had reached for him, had looked at him with anything other than pity, that he hadn't wanted to let go. Instead, he'd bent his head and dropped a silent, stealthy kiss to her blonde curls.
Then he'd staggered, overcome by a flash of light that seemed to reveal a vast forest, a tree formed into a wardrobe, a short, slight man leaning on a crutch (Mr. Gold?) and giving him a bracing nod.
When David blinked the illusions away, Emma was standing there saying something about him needing to get back to bed.
He wishes his feverish delusions had been able to wait just a bit longer. He wishes he could have held onto Emma (she felt so right in his arms, just as right as that baby had) a bit longer.
But then, how much longer does he have?
No. David grimaces and forces himself upright. He won't die in front of the school. What if it's a kid who finds him (find us)? He can't do that to some innocent child (like a boy with a mop of red curls and tears streaking his cheeks).
Where does Mary Margaret live?
As soon as the thought hits him, David shakes his head. He's the one who said goodbye to her. She's the one who listened, who stayed away seemingly without effort. He can't die on her doorstep now, after everything he's done to protect her heart from his inevitable end.
But then…where can he go?
The thought of his apartment is enough to make his legs shake and his muscles to freeze in place. He's tired of being alone. More than that—he's scared. So scared.
He doesn't want to die.
"Too late," he whispers, and staggers down the street. By way of leaning against nearly every solid surface he passes, and by taking a few breaks to vomit up nothing but stomach acid and something coppery, David is able to put some distance between him and the school. In fact, when he takes a heaving break long enough to regain his bearings, he realizes that he's nearly made it to the stables (horses and hay, sleek and large and so much different than the sheep that make him think of home).
They're dark and quiet too. No one around.
Well, it's not ideal. He certainly (were he well enough to think of it) wouldn't make Regina face his lifeless body, but he has the feeling he's reached the end of his endurance.
(A body, adorned in white and spread out like a queen, lifeless and still until his lips touched the mouth he remembers so well, and then green eyes and sparkling smile and arms twined around his neck and why can't this be real?)
David trips over nothing and stumbles back into a wall; he slides down it until he can go no farther. He can't breathe. It's so cold, but he's on fire. The sky is so far above him, the stars so white and clear, that it seems he might just float away (just like the balloon he is, weightless and inconsequential and singular). Drifting like a breath of warm air steamed into the night and then vanishing.
A few last regrets drift across his mind. That he only got to hug Emma twice. That he won't be there to be the listening ear and the strong shoulder she needs when no one else is looking. That Regina is still under the thumb of her mother (though she chose it, this time; she has a plan and a purpose and a way out that he never did) and that Sydney Glass is still paying the price of David's hubris in thinking he could take Cora down. A frame job is, by definition, flimsy, but somehow, David was never able to prove that it was Cora who left the bruises on Regina's arms and not the homeless vagrant more addicted to any kind of liquor he could pour into that lamp he carries around everywhere than to a semblance of dignity.
And Mary Margaret. Her he regrets most of all.
In the chill air, her form shimmers into existence. Dressed in leather and furs, a cocky tilt to her head he doesn't remember ever seeing before, her hand held between them as she stares at the ring she always wears. Silver with a stone that matches her eyes, her expression awestruck and wondering. Considering. Imagining.
David reaches out his hand, desperate to touch (to hold on, to find), but the vision disappears and his hand falls back to the frozen sidewalk.
"Snow," he hears himself say. It sounds right, though there aren't any flakes drifting between the stars and him. He wishes there were. More than anything, suddenly, he wants to see snow.
(Snow. Snow white and cold and pretty. Snow White. He wants it. Her.)
"Snow."
"David? David!"
He actually thinks he conjured her voice up out of thin air (out of invisible snow) until he feels a hand (so warm it feels like a brand against his cheek) and stuttering breath feathering against his brow. And there she is. The stars are veiled behind Mary Margaret, who kneels over him, pulling him into her, chafing at his arms.
There aren't any stars (to wish on; to watch form into fairies and drift down to help him save a kingdom that's far more than a shepherd boy ever deserved). In fact, the sky is slate-gray, the sun weakly filtered through rolling clouds of frost and ice.
Just another dream.
"David, can you hear me?"
He doesn't want to die alone. David smiles. So he dreamed up Mary Margaret to stay by his side. It's the first kindness his traitorous body has granted him in years, and he soaks it in with every deformed cell.
"Mary Margaret," he tries to say through lips he can't feel.
"David, please! I can't…I can't believe you're here. Regina said—but I didn't think—how are you here? Henry…he's…I can't believe it."
"I just want to see you," he whispers. The world swoops around him in dizzying swirls, but Mary Margaret remains the same, a fixed anchor in the midst of chaos.
How appropriate.
"Thank you," he murmurs. His hand lifts, fails to make it, is helped along by Mary Margaret's, lifting it until he can slide his blue fingers against the curve of her cheek. "Thank you for not making me die alone."
"No," she whimpers. "David, please. Please, don't die."
He hates to see her cry (he loves it, this proof that he is loved, wanted; that if there were a choice, someone would choose to kiss him and wake him up from eternal sleep and wear his ring even when she's forgotten him entirely). His thumb rubs against the surreal heat of the tears on her cheek and David lets out a sighing breath.
"David," she says, his name on her lips the last thing he hears as starless darkness claims him.
And then…her lips. Warm. Soft. Melting him from the inside out, not in flames, but in the comforting warmth of hot chocolate (mixed with a dash of cinnamon) and the coziness of heated quilts and the closeness of another body pressed against his.
Her lips, pressed against him, recalling him back from the dead. (Waking him up like a strange inversion of the Snow White and Prince Charming tale Henry tells him whenever he's at the station and Emma's busy.)
It's probably a delusion. It's probably the last kindness of his dying braincells. It's probably—
Probably Snow White. Kissing her husband back to life. Breaking the curse placed on them.
Probably his memories returned to him like a sledgehammer swinging down through weightless balloons to lodge itself in solid earth.
"Snow!" he says (he can feel his lips again, can hear his own voice, strong and filled with stronger emotion).
She stares at him, and it's not Mary Margaret that he sees.
It's Snow. The fugitive princess turned thief turned ally turned fiancée turned wife turned mother (of a baby he held so short a time and loves so fiercely, so eternally, so unconditionally).
"Charming," she says, and this time, when she kisses him, he knows it's not a delusion or a mirage or a shadow of what they once were.
It's real. It's strong. It's forever.
It's True Love.
Snow White lost everything—lost herself—in the arms of her husband. She finds herself wrapped once more in the arms of her husband. Weaker, trembling, so cold they send chills up and down her spine, but still the arms she knows so well. The embrace she needs to keep herself together (the very thing that was stolen from her and deprived her for over twenty-eight years).
For the first moments after that warm wave sweeps through them, bringing her back to herself, Snow lets herself sink into Charming's hold, his kiss, his presence.
But there's still a part of her that's empty (a part that's been empty and aching and inexplicably yearning inside Mary Margaret). A piece of her heart that's been chipped away and left to molder in the intestines of a tree she took on faith was magical.
"My baby," she cries, tearing her mouth from Charming's. "Our baby. Where's our baby?"
Charming's too pale. Snow only ever knew him athletic and fresh from the outdoors, always moving and connecting and smiling. But Mary Margaret…Mary Margaret looks at David (this man with whom she exchanged only shy flirtations; this man she gave up on so quickly because nothing good ever came her way and he's the most good she's ever known) and nearly drowns in her relief to see him looking so alert, so awake, so focused.
"Emma," he whispers. "Emma's our baby. She…" Something ghosts across his eyes (disappointment? no, how could that be, when their baby is their Savior and has found them?). "She must have broken the curse."
Snow helps him sit up. Helps him stand. Looks around at the town that, she could swear, only moments ago, was dark and cloudy and covered in a twilight stasis. Now, it's bright, everything in sharp relief, each detail as familiar to her as her own eyes and as startlingly new as a brand new world. It's strange. It's haunting.
It doesn't matter. Not next to Emma.
"She…" Her brow creases as she sets aside thoughts of lesson plans and shopping lists for the birdhouses she means to help her schoolkids build in the coming weeks, and thinks instead back to the prophecy she bought from the Spinner with a name she allowed herself to say aloud, for the first time, only when the imp demanded it of her. "Did she fight the Queen?"
"Cora. Mayor Mills," David realizes aloud and their eyes meet. They've been separated for nearly three decades, forced to play parts that are as ill-fitting as this town in the rest of this world, but there, in the love for their baby, Snow sees all the connection they need binding them together (at least until they have time to work through this, to sit and talk and reconcile all the conflicting parts of themselves together). "Emma had to face her?"
"A final battle," Snow says. "Right? That's what Rumples—"
"Don't say his name," David cautions her. "Not until we know what all has been woken by the breaking of the curse."
"Emma," Snow says instead (it's the name that matters anyway and if saying it summons her here, all the better). "We have to find her. David, she's our daughter."
"I know." He closes his eyes and raises a trembling hand to his mouth. "I know. She…" When he looks at her, his expression is wonderstruck. "She's everything we ever could have dreamed, Snow."
"I know where she is." Some part of her (Mary Margaret) weeps in the back of her head, suffused in grief and confusion. The greater part of her (Snow, a mother) straightens her spine and lets determination lead her. "She's at the hospital. Henry…"
"What about Henry?"
"He was poisoned. The doctors said there was nothing they could do. They said his heart stopped beating…"
Snow drifts off. She looks around her. At the road leading toward the stables where Regina works. The office at the entrance against which she'd found David slumped, breathing the last breaths the curse would allow him (she hopes; hopes this sickness was all the curse and now it's gone, cleared away as easily as her own seeming death was once cleared away by the touch of his steadfast lips).
"You have to go," Regina had said when Mary Margaret finally got ahold of her on the phone. She seemed deaf to Mary Margaret trying to tell her that Henry (poor Henry, so smart, so kind, so special) was gone. "David can't last much longer. Mary Margaret, listen to me, you have to find him. Okay? You have to find him, and…and you have to believe that everything will work out."
"He doesn't want to see me," Mary Margaret said (Snow remembers, and curses the meekness impressed on her, the compulsion to always follow rather than lead).
"He needs you!" Regina snapped, and there was so much anger, so much purpose, in her voice that Mary Margaret found herself wandering through Storybrooke through a haze of tears, searching for glimpses of David's dark leather jacket and golden hair. She nearly hadn't found him. A whiff of hay, of animals, had tugged her in this direction, and when she saw him slumped over, nearly lifeless, her heart had spasmed in her chest.
But now, Snow has time that Mary Margaret didn't to wonder why David came here. (Why here instead of her apartment, the school, the hospital, even the diner, anywhere that might connect back to her instead of to Regina?)
"Not Henry," she gradually tunes back in to hear David saying as he pulls out his cellphone. "Regina will be devastated. She needs him. He's her—"
"Emma's devastated!" Snow snaps (though she's not sure why). "Henry's her son."
David narrows his eyes. But he's always been better at keeping words tamped down rather than letting them spill out. So he only takes her hand and turns them back toward town.
"Come on," he says. "Let's go find her."
Despite the frisson of…something…tremoring through her, Snow savors the feel of his hand in hers. Her eyes linger on David's unceasing stride even as she belatedly catalogs the smell of sickness that clings to him (that coats her lips), the gauntness of his form, the washed out shade of his eyes.
"How are you feeling?" she asks bluntly. She has to. She refuses to let Mary Margaret's desire to avoid tension from controlling her, though she can feel it tugging at her, straining to rescue them from whatever David's answer might be.
"I'm okay," he says. It's his standard answer. Even after she knocked him into rushing water and nearly got him killed by the Queen's guards, he still said the same. Even when he was dying (for twenty-eight years), he always claimed he was fine.
Snow doesn't believe him.
"I think…I think when we're at the hospital, we should get Dr. Whale to look at you," she says, tentatively. "Just in case."
David's shoulders rise as his back tenses. His hold on her hand remains gentle, though, steadfast and sure and unwavering. "No. We don't even know who Whale really is now. And I'm not sick anymore, Mary—" They both frown. Look down at their hands, where Snow wears his ring (on the wrong finger) while his are bare. "Snow," he says, carefully, as if speaking a foreign language. "You saved me."
"Emma broke the curse."
"No. You…" He shakes his head. "You kissed me. I felt it. True Love."
Snow thinks of that wave, all gold and pink and purple (the colors of magic), and how it had swept over them (not out from them, as the wave had when he kissed her awake from that poisoned apple). How it materialized after she kissed him the first time. When she pulled back to look down at him and see if he was still alive.
But. But Charming's looking at her as if she's his savior. As if she's a hero. Good and noble and just and everything her mother always was. He's looking at her the way she looked at him when she sat up from that glass coffin and realized nothing she could do would ever equal all he's taken on, given up, suffered, offered, sacrificed for her.
This, though (if she really were the one who saved him), could balance the scales.
Heroes don't lie, Snow thinks.
He needs this. He needs me, Mary Margaret realizes with dawning awe.
And she says nothing.
The two sides of herself alarm her. When the Spinner told her that Emma would break the curse, she never thought there would be residual effects. Like an alter ego still alive in her head. Like the town of Storybrooke still concrete and whole around them. Like the fact that the Enchanted Forest still seems as distant as a fairytale.
Like the happy ending that still looks as unattainable now as it has any other time in her life (her mother dying; her father marrying Cora, who killed him and then tried to kill Snow; like Regina helping her run and telling her never to return; like David, gifted her and then snatched away again nearly on the same day; like the constant battles, unending, always demanding more and more and more of her until finally there was nothing left to give; Snow has known so little real happiness and so much struggle).
"Why are we still here?" she murmurs (Mary Margaret hopes David doesn't hear her; Snow hopes Charming has an answer for her).
He turns to look at her. He opens his mouth.
"Snow? Is it really you?"
Ruby (Red, her friend, once hopeful, always concerned, forever guilty) stares at her from the street where she apparently stopped her car in a hurry when she saw them. Mary Margaret ate at Granny's countless times, was served by Ruby nearly every occasion, has even gone out with her a few evenings to the Rabbit Hole. But only now, as if for the first time, does she look at Ruby (at the heavy makeup, the revealing clothes, the streaks of red married through her hair) and feel embarrassed. As if she's seeing Red undressed and vulnerable against her will.
The princess inside her turns away (she felt less intrusive when she saw Red sobbing over the bloodstains in the snow that were all that was left of Peter than she does now), but Mary Margaret steps forward and sweeps her maybe-sometimes-friend into a hug.
"Red," she says (her tongue stumbles over the new-old name). "It's so good to see you."
"David?" Red asks over her shoulder, and Charming wraps his arms around them both. Snow closes her eyes when she feels him drop a kiss to the crown of her head, relishing the tiny (oh-so-monumental) mark of affection.
"We're trying to find Emma," Snow says.
"Emma." Red blinks. Blinks again. Dawning wonderment shines across her expression, making Ruby look younger than she ever has before. "She's your daughter."
"The Savior," David says with unmistakable pride in his voice.
"I'll take you there," Ruby says resolutely.
"You sure you remember how to drive?" Mary Margaret asks even as Snow heads for the car.
"Of course I do." Red's brow creases, but her fingers don't hesitate in turning the ignition. "I was just driving a few minutes ago."
Snow finds herself staring out the window at the passing scenery rather than at the two people in the car with her. She's struck by everything she sees (the diner, crowded with townspeople all calling out names and hugging and searching, weeping; the clocktower in the distance, still chiming out the hours that only began to pass when Emma and August came to town), and yet, oddly removed from it all.
The bulk of her attention is what waits for her at the hospital. Who waits for her.
She'll be devastated, Snow forces herself to realize. Emma has just lost the son she found only recently (the one she gave up, and Snow's heart breaks as she thinks of just how much that must have cost Emma; she knows how much it must hurt her). She won't be in the right mindset to be ambushed by parents she doesn't know.
Or maybe it will be the perfect time. Of course. She just lost her family. She needs a new one. Parents who love her. Who will help her and embrace her and never leave her alone again, not like…like August.
August. Pinocchio?
A rush of shame sweeps through Snow when she remembers the unreasonable hatred that she'd directed toward the poor boy. But he did it. He protected Emma, got her to Storybrooke at just the right time, brought her back to her real family. Now, it's Snow's turn to be there for Emma. To comfort her and love her and be everything she should have had the chance to be if only the Heartless Queen hadn't interfered.
Ice threads through Snow's veins when she thinks of Cora. So many years lost to them all, and for what? What could Cora possibly have gained from this? Whatever it was, Snow hopes it was worth it. It'll be the last victory Cora ever gets. She'll make sure of that.
"Snow. Snow, we're here."
"It's not my day to volunteer," Mary Margaret starts to say when she recognizes the hospital. She flinches and clamps her mouth shut.
David stares down at her from where he's opened the car door for her. "You okay?" he asks.
"Yes. Yes, I am. We're going to find our daughter, David."
"Right. But…" After a quick goodbye to Ruby, David entwines his fingers through her as they start for the doors. "Let's just take it easy, though, okay? Emma's not really comfortable with a lot of people, or a lot of emotion. We don't want to scare her away."
"How can I scare her?" Snow demands. She hates the jealousy prickling across her skin. It's irrational and unfair and unnecessary, she knows that, but it's there nonetheless. David's been able to spend time with Emma, to get to know her and learn her moods and her likes and dislikes, while Mary Margaret only got to talk to her a few random times. She remembers the hug she shared with Emma in the hospital hallway (was that only a few hours ago? it feels like a lifetime) and wishes she'd held it longer, tighter, softer.
"Snow—"
"I'm her mother," she says. "I love her, David. I would never scare her or hurt her or—"
"Abandon me?"
"Emma." The name is a breath (held for nearly thirty years) expelled from the depths of Snow's soul. "Emma, we didn't abandon you. We sent you to safety. We wanted you to have your best—"
"And I was alone."
David's hand tightens around Snow's even as he takes a tiny step forward. "Alone? No, you…we sent you with a guardian."
"A little boy?" Emma exclaims. "August was…" She suddenly blanches. "August. He…he knows about this? All of it? The…the princes and princesses and knights and heroes—everything?"
"He's Pinocchio," Snow says impatiently (this is her chance, their chance; she doesn't like wasting any of their time together talking about a boy who's already had the gift of time with Emma). "The Spinner said you'd be better off with someone young enough to learn this world and still bring you back home."
"The Spinner?" Before David can more than open his mouth, Emma holds up her hand and shakes her head. "Forget it. It doesn't matter. We have more important things to worry about right now."
Snow's entire being rejects that statement on a fundamental level. She tenses, ready to leap, to hug, to convince—but David wraps his arm around her to keep her close. Even that might not have been enough (not when her baby is right in front of her, small and fragile and thinking her parents didn't, don't, love her), but this close, she feels the tiny tremors wracking David's body. The little hints that maybe the cancer isn't just a matter of belief. Fear snakes through her as insidiously as Cora's voice once did, and Snow wraps her own arm around David's waist and stands as steadfastly as she can.
"Emma?"
A little cry escapes Snow as Henry steps out from the hospital doors. He's dressed. He's upright. He's breathing. Smiling down at the family reunion as he resettles a backpack high on his shoulder and slips to Emma's side.
"Oh, cool," he says. "You found your parents. Snow White and Prince Charming—isn't that amazing?"
Emma doesn't raise her eyes from the kid (Snow's grandchild, how is she just realizing this?). "Yeah, kid, it's amazing. W-wonderful."
That little stutter is like an earthquake rolling through Snow (driving Mary Margaret further into the deep; calling to something leonine and protective inside Snow White).
"I don't understand, though." Henry's brow scrunches up a bit. "If you broke the curse—like I knew you would—why are we still here? I thought we'd all go back to the Enchanted Forest."
"Are you all right, Emma?" David asks abruptly. Only Snow, wrapped up with him, can sense the tension corded through every one of his muscles; from the outside, he seems calm and steady and everything she's ever needed him to be (Mary Margaret's memories make Snow wonder, for the first time, how often David has hidden this kind of anxiety, this hint of uncertainty, from her; how many times she's taken the face he presents for granted).
"I could do with a bit of wine. Maybe…several…bottles."
Charming shoots Snow a quick look. "We've fought Cora ourselves, Emma. Many times. You never come out of a battle with her completely unscathed."
"We're so glad you're all right," Snow can't resist interjecting (she wants Emma to know they wish only the best for her).
"Cora?" Emma winces and lets out a heavy sigh. "The Heartless Queen, I'm assuming? I didn't fight her. Not unless you count all these manipulative games she plays with the town, because if you count that, then yeah, I'd say I've gone more than a few rounds with her."
"No, we…" When David falters, Snow says, "Well, the curse broke. We thought…the Spinner said there'd be a final battle."
"Oh, great." Emma mutters something that suspiciously sounds like What even is my life? before shrugging and looking down at Henry. "Whatever that…wave…was—it happened when I kissed Henry. That…"
"Magic," Henry said helpfully. Snow doesn't miss Emma's answering flinch.
"It blew out from him, he woke up, and then Dr. Whale was saying something about all the colors being too bright and this volunteer nun thanked me for bringing them back and…"
"And I said we needed to find my mom," Henry says. He looks over at Snow and David, and Snow's heart clenches at the bright interest alive there in his eyes.
She's always liked Henry. From the first moment Regina called and invited her over to meet the baby Mary Margaret had had no idea she was adopting, when she came and helped Regina figure out how to hold the bottle just right so he could suckle—to his first day at school and the bright smile he gave her, the intelligent questions, the way he always seems miles ahead of the rest of the students, always so kind and so ready to help others—and so very, very gentle with his mother. Mary Margaret loves Henry.
But now, looking at him with Snow's eyes, she sees him as so much more than just some sort of pseudo-nephew. He's her daughter's child. Her grandchild. Hers.
"Does this make you my grandparents?" Henry asks.
David's heart skips a beat against her cheek. Snow laughs, once, a peal of joy she can't hold back.
"I guess so," she says.
For an instant (far too long), a shadow passes across his young eyes. "I never really cared too much for my Grandmother," he says softly. "But some other grandparents could be cool."
It's only after David pulls him into a loose hug, Mary Margaret's hand warm and familiar on his back, that Snow looks up from Henry's exuberance to see Emma staring at them. They form a loose huddle, but Emma stands alone. Removed. Separated by a chasm Snow probably should have expected but that still blindsides her anyway.
"Emma?" she asks, softly, a feather-light invitation as she extends her hand toward Emma.
Emma stares.
The world teeters.
Snow holds her breath.
And then Emma moves—and the world collapses in on them all.
Belle is in Granny's Diner, on her own, for the first time, staring at the menu hanging behind Ruby's head, trying her hardest to decipher the letters cut from plastic rather than written in Gold's slanting script (trying not to let any of the other many people around her realize how hard it is for her), when she blinks and remembers who she is. The letters resolve themselves, so abruptly clear that Belle nearly staggers at the multitude of choices now open to her.
Dishes fall to the floor and break into a million pieces as Granny and Ruby stare at each other. Behind her, Belle can hear a rush of noise and clamor as the rowdy group of men who came in after her all get even louder, exclaiming and naming and refamiliarizing themselves with each other. Everyone in the diner seems to know someone else.
And in the middle of it all, an island amidst their dawning realizations, Belle stands.
"Go to the diner tomorrow," Gold told her, when she carefully closed the makeshift book he'd written for her. "Go see Dr. Hopper. Go take a walk. Do whatever you have to, just make sure you're not in the library."
"Why?" she'd asked (as carefully as she handled the pages, because she didn't want to give away just how hard her head was pounding after reading out the story he'd gifted her).
"It's complicated. Just…" Something inside her (mixtures of what she'd learned about him in their midnight teas and what she was realizing about him based on the story he claims is theirs) told her that it took every bit of courage he possessed for him to meet her eyes and say, "Do you trust me, Belle?"
She does. Of course she does. Since she was taken from her cell, he's the only real thing she can depend on. Dr. Hopper's kindness, Emma's suspicious protectiveness, Ruby's rushed friendliness—they're ingredients easing her into this world of freedom. But Gold is a fixed point. The one solid thing in this town made up of abstract concepts and elusive names and mysterious people. He's hers (hers in a way she can't explain but can't deny either), the first thing she's ever been able to claim (because she refuses to claim that cell as any part of her).
So she read their story and she trusted him (even though she knows the story is crazy, full of curses and magic and ladies too self-sacrificing to be real; even though she knows kisses don't actually fix anything and love doesn't conquer all and endings are isolating rather than happy) and she spent all morning gearing herself up to make her way out into the daylight, into the crowds, into the terrifying open.
And now she can read. And she remembers. And she has to tuck her lips in between her teeth to keep the name that matters most from slipping out.
"Belle?"
Startling, she turns and sees a man she thinks she's surely been introduced to. He's barely more than her height, bearded and gruff and holding his cap in his hands, jostled by the milling mass of six or seven others all exclaiming over each other. "Sister, is that you?"
"Dreamy?" The name doesn't come easily, but she pulls it out from deep inside her and feels a smile bubbling up from within her (she is more than that cell; more than a pawn and a trapped ace in the hole).
"It's Leroy now," he says, grumpily, but there's a lack of malice to the anger so that Belle doesn't lose her smile.
Gold (not Gold, but his name is power and magic and the key to her heart so she doesn't dare think it yet) kicked her out. Drove her from his home. Told her he didn't want her.
(The beast was afraid that temptation would be too strong, she read just the night before. He was a monster and all he could ever do was hurt whatever came too close—especially something as light and as good and as brave as the beauty before him. So he sent her away in the only way he knew how: cruelly.)
The diner snaps back into focus as Belle shoves away the memory of those words (those truths) written out for a shell of herself. She makes herself attend to Dreamy again. The man she met when she left the Dark Castle and set her face away from her father's home (the place she wasn't welcome anymore; her father and Gaston had not accepted her decision gracefully) and set off to find a few adventures to shore up her courage before she returned to the Dark Castle and the man currently building up ever higher walls around his heart.
"Are you okay?" Dreamy asks her.
"We were cursed," she observes (truths deserve to be spelled out, especially after so many lies).
"The Heartless Queen," Dreamy spits.
"Does this mean the curse is broken?" Ruby asks. She's crying, and Belle's heart clenches at the sight of it. Should she be crying too? (But she's not sad. In fact, she's…yes, she's happy.)
"It can't be," says one of Dreamy's friends (brothers? don't dwarfs hatch in groups of eight?).
"Doc's right," another says. "We're still in Storybrooke."
"With Cora," says one who looks like he should be smiling instead of wide-eyed and uncertain like he is now.
"Is this just another part of the curse?"
"What if she's coming for us?"
"She wouldn't come for us," Dreamy yells over the growing panic. "She's always had it out for Snow."
"Snow!" All the men begin clamoring in worry, and even Dreamy looks more concerned than grumpy.
"Emma has to be the Savior, though, right?" Ruby asks. Her quiet question silences them all. "She came to town and things started changing."
"Right." Granny nods sharply. "If this is part of the Heartless Queen's plan, we just need her to break the curse. That was always the plan, wasn't it?"
"A plan given to us by the Spinner," Dreamy mutters, and Belle hopes they're all too distracted to notice her instinctive flinch. "I knew Snow and that prince never should have trusted him."
"I'll find Snow," Ruby announces. "She and David will know what to do. They can talk to Emma."
Dreamy straightens to his full height. "Meanwhile, my brothers and I will go see if we can leave town yet. Whatever's changed, maybe we can escape that way. We'll need an escape plan if Cora goes nuclear."
No one notices when Belle slips quietly away. She was hardly a part of any of their peripheral lives before; now, with a world of new memories washing through them, she's even less. Which is fine, really. Belle didn't need the Spinner to send her away just in case to know that he has enemies looking for weaknesses to exploit (and if she ever forgot that, she has only to think back to the honey-sweet smile that sneered down at her in her barren cell for who knows how long; the man with the hook for the hand and the bitterness staining every inch of his being). Better for her to be invisible than to be a target (again).
It's cold outside. A few flakes of snow drift down from the sky. Both sides of Belle (the husk and the long-time prisoner) stare up in awe. Her hand tingles beneath the tiny pinpricks of cold melting against her open palm. How long has it been since she last felt the simple reality of snow? So long that tears burn at the back of her eyes and her hand shakes beneath the weight of the icy flakes.
At the sound of more people (so many, dozens more names that Belle will never be able to keep track of), she looks up to see blue-garbed women milling through the street. Blue, they say, over and over again, a staccato murmur that makes Belle wonder what's so unusual about the color they wear.
"I—I can't be in charge!" one of them sputters.
"Where are our wands?" cries another.
"—no fairy dust—"
"—trapped—"
"—could be anywhere—"
"—if he has her—"
Fairies. Belle studies the women closely. They look normal. Perfectly mundane. No hint of glow to their single-toned dresses. No shine to their skin. No wings or size-changing.
The curse broke (he told her, warned her it would happen soon, don't be alarmed, he said aloud; don't hate me, he meant). But there's still no magic. Not here, in this world without magic, the one stipulation her gifted story reiterated once, again, again (it's important, but why she doesn't know, yet). And no magic means no stars to hear, no wishes granted, no trinkets that are so much more, no happily ever afters gifted to those who beg the loudest and longest.
It means he is vulnerable. (Alone.) Defenseless. (Solitary.) No shields and walls and offensive weapons to come between him and the anger of those he deals with, those he refuses deals with. (No dark shadow to lurk in his wake and whisper quiet temptations, insinuating doubts, terrible ideas.)
Belle turns her face from the awakening fairies and hurries toward the library. Intent on her destination, she hardly looks up at all until the ground shakes beneath her feet. Throwing her arms out for balance, Belle feels the crinkle of papers hidden inside her coat. She hadn't dared touch them at all in the diner (these are meant only for her eyes, she knows; the Spinner has always been exceptionally private, and he's always relaxed that mask around her for reasons she hopes she has guessed correctly), but now the sound of them reassures her. The world may be tilting around her, but these are real. Concrete. Important.
Another tremor brings Belle's eyes up to the clocktower, still standing upright and visible though it's a block away. She looks back to her feet, but along the way, her eyes fall on the windows of the nearby shop. No basement windows, a part of herself automatically notes, and Belle's breath catches in her throat.
Her friends. Her friends.
They must remember themselves now too.
She imagines it: huddled up in the cells that are all they know. No hope for anything to change. No memories to rub in just how bad off they are now.
And then remembering.
Alone and cold and still just as trapped as ever, only now they must know just how much they've been deprived of. They must remember the loved ones who are suffering due to their absence (Robert and Maggie; no, that's not right, Belle knows them: Phillip and Mulan, searching for the sleeping beauty that Maleficent hated so). Now, with the curse no longer trapping them in an endless loop of the same few days, time will stretch and distort until insanity becomes their only refuge.
It should be her.
If Phillip were more magically important (more hated by Cora), would it be Aurora standing here? (Or would Aurora, so brave, so determined, have already figured out where Cora keeps her prisoners buried?) Would (should) Belle be the one locked away in a cell, only one half of herself able to read, little mouse only cause for sadness (rather than fondness), trying to learn to hum for the strong one locked in silence, and both of them deprived of all hope because whoever loved them thinks them gone forever?
Numbly, Belle forces one foot in front of the other, her eyes fixed on the ground that feels even unsteadier now than it did when it was actually shaking. Only when she rounds the corner does she dare look up toward the library (her home away from home; her haven; the refuge given her by a man still beating himself up for sending her away from her last real home).
What she sees is colder than the snow. Burns fiercer than any of her tears. Hurts as badly as the thought of her friends.
It's him. Him, leaving the library, hurrying, still limping, still holding onto that new cane, still just as handsome as he was in their old world, just as elegantly turned out, just as mesmerizing to her.
But he's not alone.
At his side walks a dark shadow Belle is far too familiar with. A dangerous figure dogging his steps, already whispering in his ear (lies and insinuations and misdirections), already distracting his attention from Belle, standing down the street and staring and trying not to acknowledge the knife in her back.
Rumplestiltskin doesn't carry a dagger anymore, but he's still just as in thrall as ever.
And Belle is no longer locked up, but she's still just as removed and helpless as she's always been.
She's too late.
Whatever she means to him (the older, maybe wiser part of herself thinks that he doesn't care nearly enough for her, that he can set her aside far too easily; the newer, purer version of herself feels the crinkle of his truths and remembers the way he told her who she was, is, and knows that he cares too much), it doesn't matter. Because something else matters more (always) to the Spinner. Someone else is always more important than Belle.
Even in another world, nothing really changes.
Belle stands in a corner like a quiet little mouse, and Rumplestiltskin walks in lockstep with a darker version of himself.
But at least this shadow, Belle can name (and names are power).
"Regina," she hisses.
"Exactly what I was thinking."
Belle whirls and finds herself face to face with Cora.
The Heartless Queen.
A honey-dark smile reshapes the mouth that haunts Belle's nightmares.
"Perhaps we can help each other," she says, and her hand closes around Belle's arm.
(Trapped again. Always. Forever.)
A/N: This chapter was HARD. I've never written such a Snowing-centric POV before, so I hope I did it justice. And showing the immediate aftermath of the curse-break was difficult even if intriguing, especially without the immediate appearance of magic to distract from just what the curse-break entailed. I am really excited to move into the next phase of the story, though, so I hope you're all still enjoying! Thanks for reading!