After casting the cloaking spell, Belle held her breath, shivering in her coat next to Ruby because, because she just couldn't do such a thing alone. They stood shoulder to shoulder in nervous silence, simply staring down the road and then up into the sky, which remained unchanged.
"How do we know it worked?" Ruby asked in a hushed voice. As if on cue, a robin thumped along an invisible wall in the sky. "Oh."
"They can't see us now," Belle murmured, reaching out and letting her fingertips scrape against the clear barrier. She smiled in hopes that endorphins or serotonin or some jumbled word in a medical book would bring her some cheer. Storybrooke was safe, and yet Belle knew being erased from a world, being hidden away, proved to be anything but a victory. Feeling an arm around her, her arm fell back to her side.
"So what do we do now?" she asked.
"Now, I think we have to get things in order," Ruby said, tossing her hair. "No mayor, no sheriff, no creepy guy who knows everything collecting rent. No offense." She nudged Belle with her elbow. "I say we hold a town meeting and do some serious voting. And, we should let everyone know just how brave Mr. Gold is being."
"Thanks." Few people in the world could claim Belle was enough at ease with them to rest her head on their shoulder. Ruby could boast that.
"Belle," Ruby cleared her throat, her eyes wide. "We should totally run for mayor and sheriff."
"What?"
"Come on! Let's throw our hats in the ring! It wouldn't have worked before the curse was broken, waitress and all, but things are different now, and you're the one who just saved the town with that spell!"
"No one's going to want a librarian that spent twenty-eight years in a cell for...mayor?" She cocked her head and eyed Ruby.
"That's what I was thinking—you the mayor and I'd be the sheriff, but with Leroy as my deputy. And just until, you know, Emma returns and we go back to taking things one day at a time until there's a magic bean with our name on it."
"Leroy. Dreamy. Grumpy—what's your real name?" Belle asked. "I mean, if you don't mind my asking. Ruby's pretty, but it's what Regina forced you to be."
"If you don't want to run with me, that's fine. I could have the mayoral position and Leroy can run this town as the sheriff. If you think that's a good idea..."
"Ruby, hold on," Belle said. "I, I don't know how to run a town and do you know anything about law enforcement?"
"Belle, you were a freakin' princess and I helped dethrone the Evil Queen. I think we'll be okay. What do you say?"
"The library..."
"If you were the mayor, you could set the library's budget," Ruby said. "You could hire a weekend librarian. You could, I don't know, put in surround sound or something. Please? Let's take care of Storybrooke."
"Okay," she said before she even had a chance to think. Quite the undertaking, she thought, stuffing her hands in her pockets as they walked back into town. She took in the main street the way she took it in the very first time she'd walked it, in a hospital gown, unable to recognize a traffic light, a car, a parking meter. The gravel stabbed her feet, her slippers useless, but she'd savored the paint, so grateful to be outside. This narrow, small-town street had been a vast space waiting to be explored, each shop a deep cavern.
A mayor should feel that way about a town, she felt, straightening her back, and a project would definitely help her adjust to Rumple being gone. Well, she'd better think of a few ideas before the next town hall meeting.
"Here. This is what I wanted to show you." Ruby flipped on the lights to the sheriff's office.
"Why do you have keys?"
"I worked here, temporarily. Emma had the key copied for me. This way." She all but broke into a run to the filing cabinet. Sorting through the manilla files, she opened one up and let it pop onto the desk. A black-and-white photo of an older man caught Belle's attention. Strong features, a prominent crease between his eyebrows gave off an authoritative, competent impression.
"I've seen him before," she said.
"That's the district attorney, Spencer here. He was King George in the Enchanted Forest, David's step, uh, kind of step, slash, adoptive father."
Belle picked up the file.
"He's the man who framed you."
"No one knows where he is. David looked for him. Emma looked for him, and then it was just one thing after another. Slipped under the radar. I want to find him, Belle. He's Storybrooke's only wanted man, he killed Billy, he framed me and tried to ruin one of my friends. Now's as good a time as any to pick the search back up." Biting her lip, she glared back at the photo. "I don't think we can arrest him, though. Kind of need a badge for that."
Belle paced the office, remembering pacing the same way around Granny's the first time she'd stepped into it. She'd read the menu posted over the kitchen over and over but had hesitated to order anything for so long she feared she'd be asked to leave. She'd settled on iced tea since it sounded the simplest. People had called her brave, and even Belle would concede that many of her decisions had been brave, but it didn't come naturally. Every time she had to build herself up for it, that it was the right thing, the thing a hero would do, do the brave thing and bravery would follow. Ruby's bravery, although sometimes Belle believed it was more bravado, came naturally to her. They'd hit it off right away, but she felt at times she was the one being coaxed into everything, the naysayer. No more, she decided.
"I'm sure there's an extra badge around here somewhere," she sang in a coy whisper, taking a seat in the chair and rifling through the drawers of the desk.
"Still got to find him, though." Ruby folded her arms. "I guess in the movies the first thing the private eye does is go to some seedy dive and start asking around, but I don't know many low-lives. Do you?"
A grin spread across Belle's face.
"I don't. But Lacey does."
The Rabbit Hole offered walls discolored by cigarette smoke, billiard tables with little rips in the felt, and a coin-operated jukebox with nothing later than 1985 in it. And yet, as Lacey, she'd held some affection for it. In its own way, she supposed, it was a place without judgment. Anyone, even a recently released patient with a new penchant for skimpy clothes, could find a place here. And she did like shooting pool.
Her dress this afternoon would make pool impossible, she thought, once again tugging at the red skirt hugging her thighs.
"Hey, Lacey," Johnny, the cherubic bartender, her favorite bartender, greeted her when she slid onto a stool. She ordered a cocktail and sipped, her system more adjusted to booze than she would have liked. In her kingdom, one of her governesses, Mabel, would close (and begin) the day with some gin. Too young to understand anything except her governess giggling more and colliding into the furniture, she never mentioned anything to anyone until the day Mabel staggered to the stable mumbling something about riding off into the sunset. She ran to her father as fast as her legs could carry her and the next thing she knew, Mabel had been dismissed with advertisements for another governess dispersed through the kingdom.
Rumpelstiltskin's relationship with magic and power seemed to be the same kind of thing. At least he worked on it, though. She had seen the determination in him, knew that if anyone could break an addiction, he could. Her fingers danced around the rim of her glass.
"What ails you?" Johnny asked.
"Nothing. Nothing now that you're talking to me," she said, leaning forward to tussle his hair. She reached into her purse and pulled out the photo. "You see a lot of people."
"A lot of the same people."
"Have you ever seen this man?" She passed the photo to him.
"Once or twice, not so much now. Used to see him about, oh, five months ago. He'd come in here and take some whiskey, not talk to anybody, and then head out." He laughed a little and handed it back to her. "Mr. Gold dump you and you're on the rebound? There are plenty of guys here that wouldn't turn you down."
"Let's just say I have a thing for guys with power," she said. "That's the district attorney." She tapped the photo with her fingernails. Fire engine red, the bottle had said, to match the life-cinching skirt.
"Is it? Hang on, let me see that again." Johnny held the photo up to his face and squinted, leaving Belle to debate mentioning an optometrist. "It is. Wow. That's the guy who was going to remove the sheriff or the stand-in for the sheriff or something?"
"Really?" Belle folded her arms and rested them on the counter.
"Yeah, he's, he's a real piece of work, Lacey, maybe more so than Mr. Gold."
"Oh, I doubt that."
"No, I remember now. He was in the paper for killing a guy, a mechanic, I think. You do yourself a favor and start flirting with one of these sorry asses in here. Sleazy, sure, but murder-free." He turned his back to her to wipe the inside of a stein.
"Johnny, do you know where he is now?"
"Lacey..."
"Please? It's not every day I get the chance to meet a district attorney. Just look how strong that chin looks!"
"Look," he sighed, and Belle could see by the way his eyes darted to and fro before approaching her that she'd won. "He was asking if I thought the nuns would take him in."
She blinked. "The, the nuns? Are you sure?"
"Well, he'd have nowhere else to go. He could go to them, claim sanctuary. That's a thing!" he said in a defensive tone. Belle threw up her hands with the palms out as a sign to take it easy. Nuns? Confident she could chug the remainder of her cocktail, she drew her head back and took a strong swig, wincing at the bitterness. Thank you, Rumple, not only for bringing me back, but probably for saving my liver in the process.
"Thanks, Johnny. There's a man I want to see."
Ruby loved the crisp Maine air, an extended autumn, the fall's clothes, the leaves crunching underneath her feet...paws, all the encroaching holidays. But cold bleachers with nothing between them and her skin but jeans and a quilt, her gloved hands all but groping a Styrofoam cup full of hot chocolate, sent visions of Maui and Tahiti and other tropical places to her mind.
"Sorry high school football is the best Storybrooke can offer," Victor said, coming back from the bathroom. She smiled at him, her beret slipping down to her eyebrow. They'd met for lunches together a few times since the night they'd sat together on the bridge, a talk about monsters rejuvenating both of them. So this, Ruby thought, could technically be dating, and as intimate as him wiggling in underneath the quilt with her was, as...heart-fluttering as that was...it had nothing on the day before the last full moon. He'd called her at the diner and asked if she'd like some company when she changed this time.
Halftime about to end, three minutes according to the scoreboard, she concentrated on the march the band belted out on the field, trying to remember if she'd heard it before. If she looked at him, the memory of him sitting in the empty diner, his leg jiggling the only giveaway he was nervous, flooded her mind. I trust you, he'd said, so casual it registered as suspicious. It'll be important to see it. For science. If I ever get sued for malpractice, maybe I could call in a favor? She'd laughed in mid-transformation for the first time.
Blushing and staring down at her shoes, she jolted. He'd been watching her, and not the creepy once-over looks she'd catch him pulling during the curse. This—in transformation she could feel her pupils dilate, her heart rate escalating, every pore sprouting fur—she kissed him. His hands cupping her face, her body warmed degree by degree.
A/N: I'm not going to change narrators too much for the Storybrooke plot. You'll be reading from either Belle or Ruby's point of view for those as I felt giving EVERYBODY a narrative would be too much of an undertaking. Thank you for reading.