Dearest Belle Chapter 3: The Third and Fourth Letter, an once upon a time fanfic

Dearest Belle,

It's been a month since you died, I've been trying to block you out, spin to forget like I always to. But I can't, I can't forget you. There's that potion I mentioned, the one that makes you forget who you need to, makes you forget heartbreak and those who broke it in the first place. I couldn't take that potion even if I wanted to relieve myself of this grief. I can't forget you.

I can't forget the woman who tore down my curtains, the woman who forgot to dust all the time, the woman who spent days at a time reading, the woman who teased me, the woman with a slightly twisted sense of humor, the woman who liked obnoxiously sweet tea, the woman who had hair like a chocolate river, the woman who had eyes like a frozen lake, the woman who went off on rants about politics and fictional characters. The woman who knew how to use a sword and a bow, the woman who saved her people, the woman who didn't show fear, the woman who couldn't bake to save her life but made amazing soup, the woman who asked me questions about my travels and the objects I got, the woman who seldom liked the main characters but always the villains, the woman who wanted to know more about me, the woman who left me speechless half the time, the woman who had a ridiculous sleeping schedule, the woman who couldn't pronounce the word 'miniature', the woman who despised the sound of things snapping but loved the sound of fire crackling, I can't forget you Belle. I don't want to.

She was touched that he remembered all these things about her, she knew how many years he had seen and how many people he had met. She often thought about how Rumplestiltskin always remembered names and faces, but never anything specific, deeming most people unimportant. But he remembered everything about her, and it stuck her that when they were reunited the first time he had held onto those facts. Rumplestiltskin had always given her as he deemed 'obnoxiously sweet' tea; that had been a running argument, he liked his tea with too much cream and she liked it with too much sugar. But when she returned a few years before he had always made her tea as sweet as he could. He had recommended books with complex and morally ambiguous characters, lit fires as often as he could, put a cot in the pawnshop in case she needed a nap, told her about the politics of the world without magic so she could complain about them. No one had cared so much about those little, completely insignificant things about her. Let alone remember those things for thirty years.

You shouldn't have loved me, I keep thinking that if I let you go you would find someone else, that you only loved me because there was no one else around to love. That's probably true, I should have let you have me, because apparently you wanted me, I wanted you too, more than anything. I didn't deserve you.

"Stop it." Belle whispered to the words, "Stop saying these things Rumple."

I keep thinking about our deal, I liked you from the moment we made that deal, and not just because you were beautiful and authoritative, but you respected that magic always comes with a price. You didn't try to find a way to evade the price, you went with me and you intended to stay. I have made countless deals with countless fools and nearly all of them did not respect the principles of magic. Using magic is like buying a drink, if you don't pay for the drink person could poison you. I keep thinking about how I poisoned you on accident.

You paid the price of magic, you saved you village (and it has remained saved and ogre free), you went with me forever, but when you left you had broken the deal. I broke the deal.

That was the second deal I have ever broken, the first was with my son and I lost him because of that. Now I lost you too. Most people assume that I dictate the price of magic, but I don't usually, I mean I do make the price, but if they don't pay it then the price appears on it's own. I suppose that's what happened to you. The price came up on its own.

Belle took a sip of her tea before contemplating his thoughts, her imprisonment with Regina, was that just a continuation of her deal with Rumplestiltskin? Magic did come with a price, perhaps she was just paying it, price was always defined by something one does not want to pay, Belle had enjoyed being with Rumplestiltskin too much for it to count as a price.

I have a plan to get him back, Baelfire, it's been in motion for a while but it's finally moving faster.

There was a large paragraph going on about how he was to put everything in place, with Cora, Regina, Snow White and Prince Charming and their unborn child. Belle fought the urge to roll her eyes at the complexity of it all.

I've spent years searching for a way to get back to my son, to get to the land without magic, and this is how I saw it would happen. If there is anything I learned in my lifetime, it is that fate is not something to challenge. I tried once and it cost me more than I could have ever predicted. Things will turn out this way, and today Snow White will come to make a deal with me. She will want a potion to get rid of the memory of the man she cannot be with, Prince James.

There's actually quite an amusing story there, with Prince James that is, he's not actually a prince. About 25 years ago King George came to me in seek of an heir due to the fact that his wife could not conceive a child. At the same time there was a poor shepherd family having twins they couldn't afford, so I arranged that one of the twins would be the heir of King George and they wouldn't go hungry for five years. Recently the twin who was set as the prince won in a duel to become the dragon slayer for King Midas (the King cursed with turning things to gold with his touch), like I said, he won a duel and was set with the task of killing a dragon with the promise of a lifetimes worth of gold if he were to succeed, but right after he received the task he was killed by his near-dead opponent. King George was desperate to bring his son back to kill the dragon and receive Midas' gold, but as you know, you can't do that.

Those last words were written extremely shakily.

But I told him that the son I had given him had a twin, David the shepherd, he went to pose as the prince slaying the dragon while some of the king's men actually did the slaying, but in a surprising turn of events he slayed the dragon himself. Unfortunately for him Midas had the intention of marrying Price James off to his daughter Princess Abigail, so now he is forced to pose as his dead twin brother whom he didn't know existed.

I feel as though this is the sort of story you would have liked to read about. I hope you liked it, I'll tell you more about things that go on in the land of the living.

You should have lived these stories yourself.

-Yours, forever, Rumplestiltskin

Belle had finished her tea, the pot next to her had cooled down significantly. She hadn't know those things about David, James, or not James apparently. In the time before everything Rumplestiltskin would on occasion talk to her about deals he made with kings and queens, princes and princesses, all the high class people with terribly interesting secrets she was eager to learn. There was once a duke, she didn't remember his name, but he was looking for a wife for his son, the duke was quite unpopular but he wanted his son to have a princess for a wife. Rumplestiltskin knew the duke was an idiot so he decided to mess with him, he told the duke that he could find a princess if he offered a bed to a girl who could feel a pea under twenty mattresses. At the same time, Rumplestiltskin had made a deal with a peasant woman who was sick of her poor life, he told her about the duke and what he had told him. The woman pretended to feel the pea under the matrasses and won the hand of the duke's son.

It surprised Belle that she enjoyed the story as much as she did, it didn't have adventure, exotic locations, or even heroic characters; just a trickster imp who made deals with fools.

The next letter began. It was shorter than she expected.

Dearest Belle,

You deserved so much more.

It's all my fault.

Gods it's all my fault.

Belle.

I loved you so much. I really did, I didn't mean for any of this to happen.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

You didn't deserve it.

I love you Belle. I did. I really did.

I'm so sorry.

Please forgive me.

Please.

There was no goodbye statement at the end, there were large blotches on the paper on the bottom, it faintly smelled of whisky. He had been drunk while writing this.

Belle didn't like to imagine him, alone in the castle, drinking and berating himself and missing her. She hated thinking of it happening while she was somewhere far off and locked away, not able to do anything.

That seemed to be their tale over and over again. Him in pain or her in trouble, and the other not knowing or not able to do anything about it.

Like watching him put the knife through himself.

Stab.

Pain.

Light.

Nothing.

She wasn't crying now, Belle had moved past that, but she was hurting more. There was always the vision she had, what if he hadn't tossed her out in the first place, they could have been together. Maybe under the influence of the curse but together none-the-less. She could have gotten rid of the Dark One within him, saved him like she planned, they could have spent those thirty years together. What if she didn't loose her memories, what if he hadn't needed to go to Neverland.

What if he hadn't died.

They had Pandora's Box, they were so close to capturing Pan and keeping him in there. But he won at the right time and everything went to hell. Belle hated everything at that moment. Regina, separation, curses, magic, portals, whisky, Peter Pan, pirates with vengeance, false personas, hospitals, Rumplestiltskin and herself.

Everything had failed and burned around Belle and she was done.

She closed the lid of the box, went back to her books and searched for a way to bring back the one she loved and lost too many times.

To be clear this is not the end of the story there are still many chapters to go, sorry it took longer than the others.