He tried to go back to normal. He tried. But more than a month later and he felt like every morning the sun came up was the morning after she'd gone. Every time he had tea it tasted bland or it was too cold, hot, too old-imperfect. Every night he spent in his tower, he held back tears and constantly found himself ambling over to his tower windows, looking into her blackened library tower, glancing down the road, wondering if she'd ever come back.

He wasn't sure if he wanted her to.

He prepared for her to do so; for that possibility alone, he found himself at the forge late one night, the name Nimue scribbled on his dagger which held a trickled of blood he'd drawn himself from the Original even as she stared at him in contempt. She knew why he was taking it, how he'd come up with the idea to make a binding spell with her blood so that if Belle did come back and refuse to leave, they'd be free to do as they pleased without having to worry about her ever taking the curse from him again. After he completed the potion, True Love's Kiss, and a number of other lesser-known "cures" for curses, would never pose a threat to him again. Only the Seer seemed saddened by it, an emotion he quickly shoved aside.

"Clever, Rumpelstiltskin...none of us have ever thought of something like this," the Original muttered in a voice that sounded like she was mocking him just as much as she was praising him. He really couldn't bring himself to give a fuck about what she thought.

"Age comes with wisdom," he explained away.

"You know it won't work for everything. You'll still be vulnerable to the dagger, to the apprentice...to Merlin."

He glared at her as the blood on the dagger slid into the potion bottle he carried with him. He knew what she was doing, what she was trying to get him to do. But he just didn't care anymore. He was the strongest Dark One now, and he hadn't let Belle go to forget about Baelfire. He'd made his sacrifice, he wouldn't make another one for anything that was less than what Belle had been.

"I won't focus on your problem until I have my son back," he informed her. "You'll have to deal with that. Now, away with you."

He banished the woman away and completed the potion that night. But it seemed to do no good as the effort seemed to be in vain. Belle did not return. He told himself it was fine, it was right. He told himself, but he wasn't sure he believed it.

He missed her company during mealtimes, to the point that he'd given up eating again. He didn't need it. Without her, he didn't want it. It was just another task. He missed her company in the evening. He hadn't realized just how much her presence had settled him until he first sat down to spin in the evening, saw her spot by the fire vacant, and wondered why he should bother. He missed her when he left the castle and he missed her when he returned, discovering that with her gone there was no one to care about his comings and goings. There was no one to talk to. No one to worry about.

There was no one.

He'd thought only about half a dozen times of going after her, of leaving the castle to find her, or even just checking on her in his cauldron like he used to, but he always found ways to talk himself out of it. Fucking True Love…it could go just as easily as I could come. He had to let it go. He had to.

So he tried. He put her cup away into the cabinet, where he didn't have to see it. He got himself a new tea set made of metal that wouldn't chip. He found reasons to go into the Great Room at times they would never have been together, he went to work in his tower during times that they would have been together. He left the curtains open, unwilling to think of time as "before Belle" and "after Belle". He made his deals. All kinds of deals. All the time. Whenever someone requested him. Even if it was easy or stupid or in the name of love. It was just something to do. It was just something to take his mind off of her.

But it never worked.

He felt Regina the moment that she was on his property. She'd arrived in his tower, as she usually did, probably expected to find him. But he was down in the Great Room. It was the middle of the day. He didn't care. It was a time of day they wouldn't have been together, so that was when he'd decided to leave his work and spin, to make tea, to listen to the empty space where the sound of pages turning should have been.

He hadn't seen Regina in months, not since Belle had been in trouble and he'd gone looking for her in the wrong place. Even after a month without Belle, he was still furious with the witch. So furious that he'd been sorely tempted to kill Robin Hood, "her heart", in retaliation. He'd gone so far as to track him down and found him with his infant son, his wife gone or dead or just missing, he'd never figured it out. He'd resisted killing him though. For one, though his gut told him he was right, he truly had no idea if Regina was the "she" that Belle had talked to, and he'd decided that he didn't want to know. He had to work with her. He still had to use her to cast his Curse and he didn't want it to get in the way. She might have taken Belle from him, but he wouldn't let her take Baelfire as well. Second, if he was destined to be her heart as Belle had been his own, he wanted to give her the opportunity to fall in love with the wretch before he killed him. Daniel be damned. He wanted her to know what it felt like to wait for something and then have it taken away and he wanted it done by his own hands. He'd waited over a hundred years to get his son back…he could wait just as long to take his revenge on Regina. So he'd resolved to leave well enough alone, to continue to work with her as though nothing again changed. But that didn't mean he was going to be overly kind to the woman.

He used a bit of magic to lock the door on the Great Hall. It was a simple spell she could probably break through in a minute. But at least she'd have to work for it. The door did eventually open, just as he'd expected she would, and Regina sauntered in as if she owned the place. He let her despite the fact that he wanted her gone.

"Flimsy locks!" she announced stupidly. If he'd truly wanted her out, he wouldn't have made them flimsy. From now on, when he saw her he had to think of his Baelfire and all she was going to get for him. "I have a deal to discuss. A certain…mermaid…" she pronounced as he turned back to his wheel. Not looking at her helped. A bit.

"I'm not dealing today," he muttered after taking a moment to will the Seer to say something. She didn't, confirming what he knew. The mermaid, whoever she was, wasn't important to the future. That being the case, he didn't really give a fuck about Regina's mermaid. He'd been making deals every day since Belle left, he just wasn't feeling particularly dedicated to helping Regina with something that didn't involve the Curse.

"Are you angry with me?"

Her words forced him to apply so much pressure to his wheel that he stopped it. And when he turned to glare at her over his shoulder, he found she was there, staring back at him. Angry didn't even begin to describe what he felt toward her at the moment. What he felt was too complicated for one word.

"What is it this time?"

He couldn't be sure she was Belle's "she". He kept telling himself that. But he didn't know who else it could have been. Was it the time he'd gone looking for Belle that had tipped her off? Or had that Genie of hers had seen the pair of them in the mirror? He would have liked to know.

"Your little deception failed," he tempted. "You'll never be more powerful than me. You can keep trying, dearie, but you're never going to beat me."

"Is this about that girl I met on the road? Hm…" Regina taunted suddenly; unexpectedly. He kept spinning, kept turning his wheel on and on but only because he knew that if he didn't, he might turn around and kill her right now. Met her on the road…he'd potentially betrayed Belle to Regina when he'd gone after her, he'd mentioned her when he'd forced her to come to the castle to get her glamor removed, he'd stood boldly with her in front of the mirror in plain view of her, but never not once to his knowledge had she ever met Belle. It was her. She'd found her on the road to town. They'd had a conversation, Regina was the one who'd filled her head, who'd poisoned what was between them. Regina was the reason Belle was gone. Without that talk, things might have been normal right now. "What was her name? Margie?"

Baelfire…think of Baelfire..."

Verna?"

"Belle," he spat out without thinking.

"Right," Regina practically growled, as if she was the one who was angry as if she had any reason to be pissed at him. She was the problem, not he. And he couldn't wait to get to Baelfire and teach her a lesson she'd never forget. "Well, you can rest assured I had nothing to do with that tragedy."

He felt his body go cold as he stopped the spinning of the wheel. Tragedy. What tragedy? What had happened here? No one knew about what happened between them. And he felt certain Belle was smart enough not to tell people and draw attention to herself. Why had she used that word?

He left his wheel and moved closer to Regina, who was helping herself to a cup of tea. "What tragedy?"

"You don't know?!" she blanched. "Well," she huffed as if she was surprised. The spoon she was using clattered against the metal tray when she set it down. "After she got home…her fiancé had gone missing."

His heart was already racing by the time Regina spoke, but now it felt as though his chest was squeezing the air out of his lungs. Home! She'd gone home?! He'd felt certain that she wouldn't, that she would have been hurt when she left him, but she was strong. She'd have picked herself up, gone out to see the world. Why would she go home? Why would Gaston's death affect her?

"And after her stay here, her…association with you…no one would want her, of course. Her father shunned her, cut her off, shut her out."

His mouth was dry, but his throat was thick and sticky. Maurice…a coward if he'd ever met one. She'd walked all the way home with nothing, a single dress and not a penny to her name! And then she'd been cast out. She'd be weak. Why hadn't he thought to check on her, why hadn't he thought to send her away with something?! Why hadn't he made arrangements?! It wasn't too late. He could still arrange something. He could find her, he could find someone to take her, he could pay for her pain, pay to make her life better! He could fix this! He just had to do it so that he stayed away.

"So, she needs…a home."

"He was cruel to her!" Regina shouted with a wicked smile. "He locked her in a tower and sent in clerics to cleanse her soul with scourges and flaying. After a while, she threw herself off the tower," she shrugged. "She died."

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't find it in him to breathe or tremble or even cry. The world seemed to have stopped. A second lasted an hour. Was this the same day? Was this a nightmare? Was this some kind of a trick? A terrible joke? Oh, he prayed she was scheming something!

"You're lying," he managed to choke out, unable to care if he showed too much emotion. His knees were shaking, he was lucky he hadn't fallen to his knees.

"Am I?" the Queen questioned without a smile, without wavering, without so much as a twinkle in her eye.

Oh…Belle.

His Belle.

He hurt. He hurt everywhere and nowhere. His heart ached. He felt as though it had exploded from his chest, that it was shriveling up second by second. He wanted to die too. He did. If the words were true he didn't care about killing Regina, for one second, he didn't even care about getting back to Baelfire…he just wanted to be alone and wither away in her chair by the fire.

"We're done," he managed to choke out through some miracle. He was walking. He was walking to the door, and he was using magic to open it for her…but he didn't feel it. He didn't feel the weight of his body coming down on the floor or the thrill of magic in his body. He felt nothing. The room was bright. He felt only blackness. "Fine," he heard Regina spit out. "I have other calls to make."

On her way to the door, she ran her finger over the table and examined it. Dust. He struggled not to wince. Even the dust reminded him of her.

"The place is looking dusty, Rumple." When she stood face to face with him, she sneered and leaned forward. "You should get a new girl."

Regina left. His air left his lungs, the beat in his heart faded, and he doubled over, putting his hands on his knees, a show of weakness he hadn't experienced since he was human. It was only fitting. She always made him feel human. Even in…

Death. She was dead. It didn't seem possible. She was a bright light a strong woman, determined! She'd thrown herself off the tower?! She'd killed herself?! What had she gone through, what had Maurice put her through that she'd broken and given up hope? And she hadn't tried to summon him?! She hadn't even called out to him to help her because…

Because he'd broken her. Just like he broke everyone and everything around him. He'd broken Bae and Milah, he'd very purposefully destroyed whatever Regina might have been to suit himself, and now Belle…

Belle.

His eyes darted to the cabinet, the place that he'd stored her cup, unable to destroy it he'd had no choice but to hide it from sight but now…he wanted that cup. He wanted to be close to her in some way. He wanted to be reminded of her. He strode over and removed it from where he'd stashed it and nearly dissolved into tears the first time it was in his hands again, the first time he laid eyes on that chip. He saw her then, just as perfect and solid as if she was there! He saw the night she'd chipped it all over again, the way her blush had crept up her chest, how nervous she'd been, how beautiful. Oh, if he'd known that he loved her even then…

He moved carefully, step after step from the cabinet to a pedestal, the one that held the phony Grail.

She was dead. She was gone. His memories of her were strong, so strong that sometimes he felt like he could still feel her close to him. She was dead, and the Seer was never wrong. That meant that the images he'd seen in his head, those that he'd been so worried about and sent her away for, were not visions, but merely fantasies. A dead woman couldn't tell him she loved him, a dead woman couldn't bear him children, a dead woman couldn't wake up in the bed next to him, a dead woman wouldn't wear white and make vows. A dead woman had no life. The shoulder he'd seen in the bed beside him, it wasn't her. But oh, how he wished it was. She would have been perfect, he'd have worshiped her! They would have had a True Love to celebrate. A True Love that never really got off the ground. He hadn't felt a thing when she died. True Love had a tendency to do that, they could sense when one life passed. But that was True Love that was allowed to flourish as theirs never had. Because of him. Because he'd feared those fantasies he'd had of her, because he'd let himself have feelings for her and develop a connection. Because he'd let her go, all for a fear of visions that were never to be. He hadn't been there to protect her.

Her death was on his hands.

Whew. Yeah, this chapter was hard to write. It's hard to capture grief but I did my best. I also had a lot that needed to be accomplished in this chapter. I wanted to begin to summon up a bit of what we're going to see from Rumple in the next couple of sections. He's going to be on his game of course, but I also wanted to begin to portray him as a man who is emotionally spent after this. He's experienced a great high in his life that has led to a terrible loss. I wouldn't go so far as to say he's going to be dead inside because the possibility of seeing Baelfire is really going to continue to drive him. However, I wanted him from here on out to be the epitome of a man who really has no fucks to give. I also wanted to bring out a bit of self loathing to use as an excuse for why he never tries to find Belle and confirm the story with Regina. As I've said before, in a later, much later, chapter he does confess that he was stupid and really should have known she was alive because he didn't feel anything when she died. So, in order to pull that off I had to have him hit a serious low here in thinking "it's my fault, I didn't want it to be true and we lost that connection, that's why I didn't feel her die." And then of course, up top I present for you an option of why the Dark Curse doesn't break in the future when Belle kisses him. It's because he bound it to himself. Which, yes, is totally different from what he tells Belle happened in Moments Beyond. There's a reason for it. We'll get there when we get there.

Thank you Grace5231973, Alarda, and Jennifer Barattafor your reviews on the previous fiction. We still have one last chapter in the Beauty and the Beast Section before we move on. And fair warning, in addition to being a filler chapter, this chapter is also going to start off sounding sort of cruel, but I promise it won't end that way. I opened myself up to writing the cruel part after I used something else for Moments and now I have no choice. So just give me the chapter, let me explain, and then we can be on our way; not necessarily to a happier Rumple, but certainly the story will advance. Peace and Happy Reading!