Author's Note:Thank you for all the supportive comments and reviews on this story. It's made writing this so rewarding and exciting. I'm hoping everything will come together in 10 chapters. Thanks again everyone for reading, following and commenting! I really feel like this Ruby has taken on a life of her own.

Wasn't it all about Belle? I wondered after Snow left. I went to room, straight to my vanity mirror, where a strip of photobooth pictures were wedged between the frame and the glass. From our first date. Sort of our last date. After she left Gold and we had kissed and then made out and it was pretty obvious whatever was happening had already started, we just had to name it. I took her to the nicest place in town (not Granny's, truth be told) and as we walked near the pier we ducked into a photobooth and this strip of photos is the evidence I've cherish, every day since, that at one point Belle- with all her mind, with all her heart complete- wanted to kiss me. And did. Four times (or one kiss, in four frames, in our photostrip.)

I managed a quick shower and long nap before I was supposed to meet her for lunch at her place. I'll admit I spent a really long time picking out my outfit. And that my underwear matched my bra.

Her apartment building wasn't far from the library, and as I waited for her to buzz me in I was struck by how new the intercom looked, polished brass. The door clicked open and soon I found myself in an apartment way nicer than any I'd been in in Storybrooke. Her furniture was elegant and tasteful and both her walls were covered with shelves and books. Mister Gold had laid out a lot of money to gild this cage.

"Hi." I said to her, walking in, my arms already possessively encircling her waist, her neck.

"Hi." Belle glowed in a white lace sun dress. I thought of her skin underneath it and shivered. What can I say, it's the day before a full moon. In another moment I had her against the book case as we tore each other's clothes off. When I had her bare I watched with hungry pleasure as her hands reached, trembling for the shelves for support, her eyes rolling back in her head as she moaned and then cried and gasped. Books tumbled to the floor, she wilted down beside me, the dress laying far off like a fallen flag of surrender, and I pressed my lips to her cheeks, her lips.

"You're an animal." She purred, her fingers digging into my bare hip.

"You have no idea." My phone went off and I thought of throwing it across the room, when I looked and saw Emma's name on the display. I sat up and, because I'm an idiot, took the call. I turned and looked at Belle, her cheeks flushed in the late afternoon sunlight, resting in the plush of a rich red carpet without a stitch on, the wine color perfectly outlining every line and curve of her naked figure, her eyes smouldering and full of secret laughter. If does kill me, just seeing her like that was worth it.

"Emma?" I said as the other line picked up. "What's going on?"

"I need you for official police business." Emma's voice is tough, professional, impersonal. "Can you meet me at the station in ten minutes?"

"Hey, remember how I'm not the Sheriff's assistant in a professional capacity anymore?

"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't urgent, Ruby. Ten minutes?"

I looked at Belle, a faint cherry glow tangled in light hitting the auburn strands of her hair. Her lips are still glistening and they smell, as I've come to learn, always like sugar. "Um…twenty?"

Emma met me at the door of her Sheriff's office.

"I need your sense of smell Ruby. It's a full moon and I'm hoping that makes it stronger."

"Geez. So I'm Storybrooke's K-9 unit, basically?"

"I need you to help me find these beanstalks." Emma whispers, stepping closer to me. I can smell white flowers with dark leaves suddenly, and my mouth twitches.

"What?" Emma asks, startled by my change in expression.

"Are you wearing Regina's perfume?" I ask, suppressing a smile.

Emma's cheeks go red. "Okay, your nose is clearly working just fine. Let's go."

I don't know what beanstalks smell like, is the thing. And I sort of am incredibly frustrated I'm not still with Belle. I won't be able to see her until tomorrow morning, it's too risky to let myself feel so much when the full moon is out. That's why I had so many plans for this afternoon, before Emma's annoying summons. I wanted us to make it over to Belle's leather couch. And her Eames' chair. And knock the rest of the books out of the bookshelf.

"Snow told me you've moved in with Regina." I ask as we cruise through the woods. I smell a den of chipmunks. Dripping leaves. The wet cardboard of a littered coffee cup and the acrid stench of the stale grounds clinging to the inside.

"I took an overnight bag with me when I dropped Henry over there this morning." Emma darts a glance over at me. "Thanks for not telling Snow about our…drinks before."

I shrug. "It wasn't any of my business."

"Well, thank you." Emma clutches the wheel. "I know its breaking Snow's heart but I couldn't keep lying to her about it. And Henry's ecstatic. It's like his birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. He was really missing Regina."

I can't deny how weirdly, personally happy I feel about them moving in together, though I too know its breaking Snow's heart. I look at Emma: she looks years younger, like some weight has been lifted, almost girlish. I could feel her nervous confidence, her sense of bursting pride when she said Regina. "Then I'm really happy for you." I say, and we share a moment of congratulations.

Then I feel them: I don't smell them, I feel them. "Stop the car!" I almost fall out of the car, I open the door so fast, stepping out into the air. It's not a smell that's caught me, it's the sense of something huge and alive and so close. A pumping, almost like a heart. Sappy blood being drawn high, high us above by some powerful, latent force that's stirring in the soil. I can almost hear the rooty tendrils unfolding in the dark of the wet earth below. I can feel them spreading towards us, leaching up the groundwater, visibly stretching their upmost leaves towards the sun.

"Follow me." I say to Emma.

They're already the width and height of sequoias. A vibrant green, like sweet pea stalks in early summer, fleshy like an elephant's leg, with the translucent hairs like a sunflower's stem scintillated in the shafts of light that pierce down through where they've broken through the forest's canopy. There's a line of seven beanstalks, and I can hear Emma's footfalls behind me slowing as she takes it in.

"Holy shit." She breathes. "They did it."

Now my smell kicks in: dwarf, their musky male odor and that metallic twinge of the deep earth that used to cheer me when I caught the scent of it in earlier days. Grumpy is running toward us, his eyes squinting, his mouth drawn.

"Private property!" he screams. "Don't trespass!" he comes up short when he recognizes Emma, snatches his cap from his head, an unforgotten gesture from our former world when faced with royalty.

"Hey." Emma halfheartedly gestures at the beanstalks. "I'm here as Storybrooke's sheriff to investigate this…private farming project on public lands." She seems wary of getting closer to them. "How much taller are those going to get? They're about ten feet away from possibly disrupting flight patterns."

"These beanstalks are under the protection of Mr. Gold." Grumpy folds his arms across his chest. "Their height won't effect anything in the surrounding world. They're cloaked by a magic force field."

"You still need a permit, buddy." Emma walks past him, drawn to the one closest to us. I feel like if I set my hand on it I would feel a pulse. I can hear the steady cadence with which the capillaries of the plant are drawing water to the top and pushing chlorophyll to the roots below. The soil fairly moves under my feet, the roots are growing so quickly. "Will these be as tall as the ones that go up to the land of the giants?" she asks him, her gaze searching. He smiles with pride.

"This is just how tall they've gotten in a month with just putting the beans in Earth soil. The Blue Fairy and Nova are going to come and sow fairy dust in the roots under the full moon they'll reach all the way home." He looks weirdly pleased with himself. "Something your mom would know all about, Emma."

Emma nods. "She's mentioned they'll be our connection to the enchanted forest. But how do we know that nothing will climb down?"

Grumpy gulps. "Mr. Gold is the one to ask about that."

"Mr. Gold." I snarl. "Is he going to be the one who burns the beanstalks so we can't get back down?!" I howl. The wolf inside me…it doesn't have a lot of loyalty to Snow, I'll admit.

Emma looks at me, struck. "They're… leaving me?" she whispers.

"No Princess." Grumpy takes a step forward, cap still in hand. "Your mother would never leave you. We're all going home- Snow and James and everyong in Storybrooke. To reclaim the castle. To take our land back. To have our happy endings and leave the Queen and her Evil behind, here in this cursed land."Poor Grumpy was always a little too interested in his burgers to take on the social cues going on at Granny's. He looks vaguely surprised as Emma's face clouds over and she takes a step back. I can hear her heart thundering.

Emma looks at me. "That's her plan? To leave Regina here and trap us all in the Enchated Forest?"

I nod. "I'm sorry. I wanted her to be the one to tell you Emma, but you had to know."

Emma turns on her heel back to the car. "Come on Ruby."

Grumpy is pulling a cellphone out of his pants pocket. I cringe. "Wait, Emma-"

"No, I've seen enough. I've got to get back to town." Her eyes are dark. "And see about getting a chainsaw."