I want to thank everyone who reviewed a story I was so nervous about posting in this fandom. Like I said before, I am still getting used to the characterization and interactions in the OUAT FFnet section (especially Rumbelle, my god) and I am very uniquely proud to say I loved writing the second part to this three part one-shot to bits. It was probably the best form of therapy I could ever have when it comes to the stress of college and life, and I am genuinely touched that Rumbelle is bringing my love of writing back to life again. As always, I love any form of sincere criticism, so reviews are always welcome! Enjoy!

"Dreams are memories of another life."
- Mr. Gold

Before the day she was rescued, in a land where the world was young and the air weaved tender folds of magic across the realm, dreams had frequently stolen her away in the night—they were her temporary savior, her prince that nursed her sanity in darkness, and her wholesome serenity. Dreams sang sweet lullabies in her ears during slumber and sprinkled precious dust on her eyelids to ease her wounded heart. They kissed her lips until her mouth could be kissed no longer in dream world, yearning for the preferred physical touch only he could sate. And when the pain of that reality had sunk its nails in too deep and sleep became too bittersweet of a companion to bestow her bliss, Belle had pressed her cold, shaking palms to that solitary window in the Queen's tower and simply watched the world pass her by.

Spring's glorious blossoms would come and go; the flowers that sat at the bottom of the tower had budded so quickly into a delightful azure and so slowly reflected the hue of her sad eyes. Belle watched them sprout from tiny seedlings as the months passed, and once autumn had layered her sheet of frost upon the ground, she had witnessed them wither into the earth. That's one thing her and the little blooms had in common.

They had wilted.

Winter had clenched her bones in its frozen grip for days and nights on end, and the Queen made sure to take no liberties in giving her comfort in that tower. The year of her captivity passed by in a blur of occasional whippings that rendered her limbs immobile for weeks. Her body was starved without warning, her hair turned into a matted dirty mess, and from time to time the Queen herself paid a visit to take pleasure in her misery. The royal bearing the blackest heart of hearts filled Belle's head with poisonous sentiments on a whim, words that tried to darken the red rose into a deathly purple. Her efforts had failed in the beginning, for the love that had taken root in her spirit fought against the Queen fiercely. But as the months drew longer and the punishment grew harsher, Belle had been diminished to those very flowers that lay dead at the base of her prison, wilted.

A petal detached itself from the stem of her heart each day spent in imprisonment away from her true savior, from her only happy ending, and those petals fell like hot summer rain when it dawned on her that even he had not searched to the ends of the world to be certain of her secured happiness. Belle surprised herself by greeting the wilted state that her heart had become, waiting for the day when it would transform into a bleeding core—an acknowledgement that she was ready to welcome the end of her time… until the day she got wind of the curse that would end all curses. That had been the day she heard his voice. She had bloomed again like her beloved cerulean flowers in the spring.

He did not know that she lived, as she had thought otherwise. The Queen quite happily informed her that he had acquired knowledge of Belle passing into another life. But she had heard him—heard the caveats sent directly to the Queen about what would happen to this world when the heartless woman unleashed the darkness.

And Belle was more than ready to accept this fate.

She embraced the black as it wrapped around her form, hugging it to herself as it washed her memory clean. Wherever it would take her, she knew this curse, this war, it had only just begun. She would not let herself wilt again.

Belle knew her dreams would reunite her with him one day, but she had not expected such a reunion to be like this—that they would reconvene in the dank holding of a mental asylum; her, the drugged embodiment of madness in a world where magic hummed just below their feet, laying hidden to its carriers, and he, the feared pawnbroker and owner of a town called Storybrooke who kept his own secrets burrowed deep inside his empty heart.

What a match.

Due to recent news of a certain lunatic who called himself the Hatter disrupting the inauspicious peace of Storybrooke, word had gotten around about a hidden asylum he was rumored to have escaped from. The Hatter described the asylum as a place where those who "have knowledge of a life beyond the confines of Storybrooke" are locked away, forgotten, and abandoned by their families who could not bear to see their children stricken with such a tragic malady. Rumpelstiltskin—no, Mr. Gold, had heard the tales the Hatter listed on two hands of what kind of occupants sat imprisoned in the institution. And of those tales came the story of a problematic beauty a powerful queen had personally locked up, who had to be medicated three times a day because she could remember. She would speak of magic, of happy endings, and of a man who could have granted her both. Each time these matters surfaced from her lips, Hatter spoke of hearing her screams and shouts countless of cells away and not two minutes later, her silence.

That was when he knew she was real and very much alive, in mind and in body.

It didn't take long for him to track down the sheriff and inform her of the misdeeds and unlawful discrepancies the asylum bore with it. With the law and a warrant at his side, he was there faster than the Mayor herself could fathom even lifting a finger.

All of this had been disclosed to Belle the moment he had her removed from the institution—the moment when one glance at his face had burned those flickering memories into her brain for an eternity.

Belle can remember the moment when the sunlight had kissed her pale skin for the first time in 28 years, hugging and cherishing her as it enveloped her in its rays. She could not bring to mind the last time she had greeted it like an old friend, but Belle had nearly three decades to make up for this loss. And there stood Mr. Gold, looking onwards and smiling like he hadn't been able to in the 30 years his eyes were not graced with her unmistakable beauty. But the smile had been guarded, restrained. He had an inkling he would lose her again.

Yes, old habits die hard.

Yet here they were, not 24 hours later to the moment Belle had been rescued from her tower, the pair not knowing what to say to each other.

Sheriff Swan, the woman Mr. Gold arrived with upon her jailbreak, had allowed temporary release in the custody of Belle and the other patients under conditions in which time would be allotted for the reunification of their families under these curious circumstances. Belle so longed to see the face of her Papa, to feel his arms wrapped securely around her shoulders again, but an unfamiliar image of her father signing the papers of her entrapment that surfaced in her memory held her back from her request to visit. She walked back into knowing and familiar arms instead, and to her embarrassment, she did not know how to approach the conversation she had imagined for a very long time since her departure from her previous life.

The two sat awkwardly in the untidy living room of his home. She had taken comfort in a loveseat placed nearest to the window so that she could look out at the sun if his gaze had become too intense to endure. He preferred to stand an appropriate distance from her, leaning all of his weight dependently on the cane he grasped between his hands.

Belle had not expected it to be like this. She was sure a person could hear a pin drop from the other room.

The world waited with baited breath for the words neither could say.

Belle imagined their reunion to be filled with whispers and kisses he could not give her in his other state of being. She dreamt of their passion, their love restrained for over 30 years being unleashed in a delightful fury. Instead, they refrained from physical contact entirely, because she had suspected they were afraid of what would become of the other if such an act would take place.

Releasing a puff of air from her lungs, resigned, Belle began with, "Thank you, for finding me." Her cheeks burned at the expression she found on his face at hearing her speak for the first time, not regretting that she had broken the silence.

He cleared his throat to regain his voice and bowed his head. "Belle, I didn't—"

"Know I was alive?" she let out a low, soft laugh, curling her legs under herself and finally meeting his eyes. "I know you didn't. Well," Belle paused, "only for that final month of the year I spent in her tower. But I was barely alive. She made sure I would suffer until my last breath."

She broke the fierce contact his eyes made at the mentioning of the Queen, looking out the window at her first sunset she's witnessed in quite a while. It's funny how slow the world had passed her by when she could finally see it firsthand, and how fast the heartrending years had turned when she lived without light. The angle of the sun in the sky determined that it was late afternoon; Belle's release from captivity had just occurred that very morning at sunrise.

Mr. Gold swallowed, choosing his words wisely as he watched the face that turned away from him twist into a myriad of fascinating expressions. He was putting himself in a very, very vulnerable position making so many confessions in a matter of an hour, but he had feared their time was limited. If he didn't see her again after today, at least he would walk away from her knowing he had said and meant every word.

"I would have torn every tower down, brick by brick, if I knew that you lived." The coward inside him at his deepest core kicked in, the coward that is Rumpelstiltskin, screaming at him to back down and flee from his greatest weakness. But Mr. Gold took a deep breath and pressed on, looking at Belle with such tenderness it was unnatural… it was so human. "I would have taken you back at any moment, if you would have only asked."

"I imagine you would have," she replied. Belle folded her hands in her lap and sighed, pitying the man for his current state of vulnerability. However sad he looked, it didn't prevent her from holding back her brazen words, for she knew he deserved just as much of a backlash as he had ever deserved from the woman he sent walking out of his castle. "But stories don't end that way," she merely stated. "You cast me out of your life like I had meant nothing to you, you denied feeling any form of love for me, and I didn't believe you for one second, Rumpelstiltskin." Belle felt herself rising from the loveseat, battling the internal war going on inside her as she walked with tiny steps toward where he stood. "The day I found out that it was your curse, not the Queen's, that she had intended to use for the destruction of our world—that was the day I knew you loved me," she proclaimed bravely. "And you love me still." Her feet stopped moving when she reached Mr. Gold, a ghost of a smirk blooming across her mouth when she stared into his face.

With little hesitance, Belle lifted her hand to his face, brushing her palm again the pale, human flesh that made up his skin. His eyes were more russet in this world, she thought to herself, more penetrating and raw than she remembered. He leaned into her touch like a moth to a flame, resting a hand of his own on hers.

Their hands fit over each other's like a glove.

"Our story was never a happy ending even before the curse was enacted," she whispered, her lips a tempting brush away from surrender. No matter the pain of the situation they found themselves in, Belle had yearned for this moment for a lifetime. Tears welled in her eyes from the strength of the tension cutting through the air, and Mr. Gold brushed them off as fast as they came with a swipe of his thumb. His eyes watched her with such intensity that Belle ducked her head in shame, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

"No, it wasn't," he confessed. His hand went from her cheek down to her chin, tilting it upwards to meet her bright eyes once more. "I regret every moment I wasn't there to protect you from the torment you endured under her reign, and I promise you I will be paying back every one of those hours and years you suffered for the rest of my life." It was with those words that Belle looked up at him in a strange light, realization dawning on her in that moment. He let a smile escape him at his weakest point, bringing them closer than ever before. His hand slipped about her waist and pulled her flush against him.

Her heart swelled with anticipation.

She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, only watch.

"We didn't have a happy ending when the beauty first fell in love with the beast, but it's never too late to be what we once were… to try again."

Their lips found one another's in that instant, and the wilted petals that had been Belle's heart blossomed into something much more than a mere rose. For in that split second, curse or no curse, her soul had taken flight with his, and nothing in the world could wrench her from that happy ending.