Belle was adjusting well to life on her own, much better than people thought she would. She would twice a week go out to the grocery store, have breakfast with Emma and Mary Margaret on Sunday mornings, and was working most mornings and some evenings out in the stables. All of it was fairly uneventful. She had only briefly mentioned her dinner with Mr. Gold to Ruby and even then it was more than week afterwards. She hadn't told anyone about their walk in the park, though she replayed it in her mind often.

She had hoped to finally catch him at Granny's on the first Sunday in April, two and a half weeks since she had left him that night in the park. She had gotten the nerve to call once, but was answered by a recording. She couldn't bring herself to go to see him at his shop. He didn't show up at Granny's that Sunday, and she started to get nervous.

"He is still alive, right Emma?" Belle asked her as they sat by the pond Monday afternoon and threw stale bread to some baby ducks. Henry had his nose stuck in his oversized book. He kept telling Belle that she couldn't see it until he figured out who she was. Emma filled her in on the rest of his superstition. Belle couldn't deny that it was a fine tale; one she sort of hoped was true.

"Yeah I ran into him this morning. He asked about you. Again."

"I don't get it," Belle crossed her arms and huffed, "You keep telling me he asks but why won't he come and talk to me?"

"Why don't you go talk to him?" Emma pointed out.

"I've figured it out!" Henry shouted, "It was so obvious the whole time. You really are Belle!"

"Kid, not now, she's trying to figure out what he means to her and vice versa, not who she was in some fairy tale." Emma waved him quiet, but he didn't listen.

"This will help. This will make everything make sense!" He scooted over on the bench, and patted the space next to him, "Come look." Belle almost leapt into the seat, she was so excited to finally see the book. Henry whipped through page after page pausing only briefly to read a title or check a page number. Finally he stopped, at Beauty and the Beast.

"When I heard your name was Belle I immediately thought this might be your story, but people's names aren't usually the same, so why would yours be? I started looking at all sorts of other possibilities, trying to find who was trapped or imprisoned and stacking them up against you. But you and Mr. Gold love each other so that makes you the beauty and him the beast!"

"Woah, slow down kid. Nobody loves anybody yet." Emma eyed him.

"She's right," Belle said softly, trying to settle Henry down. He was getting very worked up and excited about this, "Mr. Gold and I had dinner together, that doesn't mean we're in love."

"You had dinner with Gold?" Emma gaped at her.

Belle cringed, "Oh yeah, guess I forgot to mention that," she shrugged, "It was almost a month ago, and it was just a business arrangement, nothing more." She was trying to convince herself of this more than Emma.

"Belle, Mr. Gold is Rumplestiltskin," Henry whispered, "Rumplestiltskin is the beast and you fell in love with him after he took you away to his castle as part of a deal." Henry was almost pleading with her at this point, as if he was begging her to believe him.

She didn't. "Henry, if that was true, don't you think I would remember some part of it? Don't you think I would love him, just a little bit?"

"This world is different. Feelings get mixed up sometimes. You have to love him." He really was pleading with her now.

"Why? Why is it so important that I love him?" Belle asked this and realized it was what she wanted, or maybe it was just her mind playing tricks on her.

"Because, the more happy endings that happen, the sooner we can break the curse. And besides, you said so yourself: 'you need to be with the person you love'."

Belle softly laughed, "That does sound like something I would say, but I don't remember saying it. And even if I think it's true, I don't think Mr. Gold would approve of me calling him the beast that took me captive. He would think I really was crazy."

"Ugh," Henry threw his head back against the bench, "None of its crazy, it's all true!"

"So all of these baby ducks," Emma asked throwing bread out on the pond to some of the yellow fuzzballs, "Are the brothers and sisters of the ugly duckling?" Henry just nodded furiously.

Belle laughed, "You two have fun. I'm going to go get some groceries."

It wasn't that she was awful at her job, quite the opposite really. Many of the horses had taken a liking to her and the staff enjoyed her company. She did her tasks quickly and efficiently and enjoyed every minute of it. She was happy to go to work because it was doing something she loved. So when the accident happened, everyone knew it was just that: an accident. She had done nothing wrong, and the horse had not meant to do it, he was just so riled up and energetic and Belle was unfortunately caught in the middle of it.

It had happened on a Wednesday. Wednesdays seemed to be her lucky day. She had not cried a single tear, did not complain one word, not even when they very roughly loaded her into the back of an ambulance. And now here she was, back in her own bed, alone, on Easter Sunday. With three broken ribs, a crushed spirit, and horrible bruising. It hurt to sit up, it hurt to stand, it hurt to walk. So she lay in bed. All the time. Plenty of people had come to visit her. Granny stopped in all the time with food, usually a dessert rather than a healthy meal, and Emma checked in when she could. Mary Margaret often came by after school to help Belle out with anything she needed. He hadn't come. He probably didn't even know. Unless he had asked about her, like he so often did.

Truth is he didn't know. He had stopped asking about her, preparing himself for the Sunday he came to collect a payment. She hadn't seen him for almost a month but he had seen her. He wasn't stalking. No, that would be, frowned upon. It was just that Storybrooke was not a large town, and he had many errands to run that put him in many different places. And often a meeting was planned at a time when she would walk past on her way to work, or Mary Margaret's, or running errands of her own. She never saw him though, he made sure of that. Not until he figured out how to make her remember.

But it had been a month, and they could no longer avoid each other. He avoided the Eastertime celebrations, and decided to be nice enough to let her enjoy the morning with friends and family. Well, her good for nothing father at least. He decided to wait out the afternoon in his shop, wondering if she would come and see him. He was not aware that she had spent all day alone and in bed, unable to move. When the clock's hands approached reading four in the afternoon, he picked up his phone and dialed Sheriff Swan.

"Yes Sheriff Swan how are you today?" he asked as she answered. He didn't wait for a response, "I was wondering if you had the number to a client of mine. Miss Isabelle French."

"Yeah I have her number, and it's about time you manned up and gave her a call. I never thought you to be the type to leave a girl hanging after date number one," Emma smiled as she called him out on his mistake.

"Yes, well, it wasn't a date and if I recall correctly she left me. But I'll wager you didn't hear about that part."

"No I didn't hear that and why wouldn't I have?"

"Can I have that number Sheriff?"

"Yeah, yeah. Hold your horses." She gave him the number and he dialed it with shaky fingers.

Across the room Belle's phone buzzed from atop the dresser. No one had called her, no one ever called her, so when the contents of her person were returned to her after the hospital visit Emma had placed them all on the dresser. Now someone was calling her, and Belle couldn't reach the phone. She fisted her hands and clenched her jaw, pushing herself up, but the pain caused her eyes to snap shut and stars to appear. It's said a horse's kick can feel like being hit by a car going twenty miles an hour. Belle had been kicked with all of that force in a place every person used most, the abdomen.

Mr. Gold didn't leave a message, hanging up the phone. Unless she recognized the number she had no way of knowing it was him calling. Perhaps she was still busy with prior engagements, he reasoned. He would go see her in the evening.

So when eight o'clock rolled around and he found himself hesitating knocking on her apartment door, he should have been prepared. It was most likely just the storm that had cropped up, dumping tremendous amounts of rain and repeated battery of thunder and lightning, that had him on edge. He knocked softly at first, then waited, and knocked a little louder. Still no answer. Now he was worried. Something could be wrong, or maybe… maybe she remembered, and truly wanted nothing to do with him.

"You can't hide from me forever," He called out above the rain, bracing himself against the door. He pulled away then slammed into it with all his force, breaking it away from the door frame. Belle was startled out of a deep sleep by a crash, making her jump and causing pain to shoot from every pinpoint in the shape of a horseshoe. She groaned and hissed as she settled back down, throat too dry to call out to see who was there. She heard the door being placed back into a closed position and a footstep, followed by a soft thump. She should have known. She immediately relaxed, knowing he wasn't there to rob her or hurt her. Anyone else may have expected that sort of behavior from him, but she didn't. Not towards her anyways.

"I'm in here," she called out hoarsely, clearing her throat.

"In bed so soon?" He answered. She could hear his cane hit the wood floor as he approached, "Whatever the reas-" he stopped as he saw her laying in the bed, pain etched into her face as she tried to pull herself to sit, "Oh gods," he whispered, "what happened?" he was immediately at her bedside, holding her hand in both of his, "What happened?" he asked even quieter than before. Screw propriety, screw the way to do things right, screw not scaring her off. This was his Belle and she was broken. She needed him and finally, he was there, when he should have been the moment she was put in this miserable state.

She had not cried a single tear since leaving the asylum, not even when she was scared and confused about what this man meant to her, not even when the mayor had cut her down and made her feel worthless, not even when the white hot pain coursed through her body. But now, when the object of most of her frustrations, the man she could not get out of her head, was kneeling beside her, desperate to make the pain go away and all the care in the world laced in his words, she couldn't hold back. "A horse," she choked out, "He didn't know… it was an accident…" the tears slowly leaked out one by one and then the dam broke and they became a waterfall.

She did not feel the pain when he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her into his chest, just as he did not feel the pain in his leg while his cane lay on the floor in the doorway, forgotten. They only felt the warmth and comfort of each other, beauty and the beast, as he held her like he should have done so long ago, whispering comforting words into her soft hair, and she cried into his jacket, letting herself open up to him like she should have done so long ago. It didn't matter that his long ago was thirty years and her long ago was thirty days. Nothing mattered to either one but the other in that moment. In that moment he made a vow to fix things, to never hurt her or let anything hurt her ever again. She vowed to accept whatever emotions he sent her way, and only reciprocate with a love she didn't quite understand.

I know, there's probably errors with reality and how things really work but hey, I'm not perfect and I don't know everything. I realized I never ever included the Gold vs Regina scene but I don't think I will. This story isn't about them. The reviews are great and really kept me motivated to finish this up. And I think it is. I can't really think of a way to continue it other than drabble. Thanks a ton for reading!