Title: Of Dreams and Awakenings

Rating: T

Word count: ~51k

Characters: Belle/Isabelle French, Mr Gold/Rumplestiltskin, Mary Margaret, Emma Swan, Archie Hopper, Henry Mills, Regina Mills, Moe French, various other Storybrooke characters.

Pairing: Belle/Rumplstiltskin (Isabelle/Mr Gold)

Disclaimer: Anything you recognise from 'Once Upon A Time' does not belong to me.

Emma and Mary Margaret are waiting for her when she gets back to the apartment that evening. Belle closes the door behind her, takes her time hanging up her coat. She wraps herself up in Isabelle French, cloaking herself in the insecurity and oddity of that life, and gets herself a glass of water before joining them at the table.

"I'm alright," she says quietly. "I'm so sorry I worried you last night. But I'm alright."

Emma and Mary Margaret share a glance; it's clear they've discussed how to approach this, what to say to her.

"Do you want to tell us what happened?" Emma asks, cautious, almost hesitant in a way that's unlike her. It doesn't suit her, doesn't fit right, but she's trying to be sensitive, and Isabelle's touched.

"Nothing happened," she says. "Not really." She sips her water, can't quite look at either of them. She wonders who Mary Margaret is, wonders what her real name is, her real face. She wonders what lies behind the woman she knows.

"Something must have happened," Mary Margaret says, and Isabelle shrugs, glances up at her. "You don't have to tell us," she goes on. "I know you've talked to Archie. But we're concerned about you."

"About you and Mr Gold," Emma adds, and Mary Margaret frowns at her, shakes her head. Emma ignores her, reaches across the table to touch Isabelle's hand. "You seemed happy," she says. "We didn't want to say too much…about who he is."

"I know who he is," says Isabelle, and she pulls her hand away, puts it in her lap. "He really didn't do anything," she says. "It was…I just…" She shrugs. "I didn't handle it, that's all."

"Handle what?" Emma asks. "Did he – did he try anything, Isabelle?"

"Emma," hisses Mary Margaret. "Stop it." Emma's mouth twists in a scowl but she nods, leans back in her chair. Mary Margaret takes over, offers Isabelle a smile. "What Emma means to ask," she says, "is did anything happen that you weren't comfortable with?"

"No. Yes." Isabelle sighs, lifts her hands to cover her face. "Yes, but it was my fault," she says voice muffled. "I was the one to kiss him. Not the other way around."

"Oh!"

"Really?"

Isabelle drops her hands, offers a shy smile. "Yeah," she says. "Really. So you can stop thinking he's taken advantage of me or made me do something I didn't want to do. I was the one to kiss him." Emma's face is a picture, fascination and shock, and Mary Margaret seems no less surprised. Isabelle feels her cheeks heat at the way they're looking at her, and she shrugs her shoulders, glances away.

"Oh my god," Emma says at last. "Seriously?"

"Don't look at me like that," Isabelle begs. "Is it so shocking?"

"Well, no," says Mary Margaret, recovering her diplomacy, reaching out to poke Emma's shoulder. "I guess not. I mean, you like him, so I guess…" She shakes her head a little, but there's a smile hidden in her mouth, her eyes. It's clear she's at least a little reassured by what Isabelle's said.

"I do," says Isabelle. "And…and yes, I did."

"And?" Emma asks, and she's trying to tone down her concern, her need to know what happened. "If he didn't – well –"

"I – I just…couldn't handle it," Isabelle says quickly. It's not the truth, of course. She can't give them the truth, can't offer it to them in any way they could understand. Mary Margaret knows about Henry's theory, Henry's book, and she's sure Emma does too – but they don't believe.

Snow White, she remembers suddenly. Henry thinks Mary Margaret is Snow White. And that means…that means Regina Mills is her step-mother. That means all of this, this whole world, their fake memories and fake lives and the masks they're all wearing – it's all because of whatever happened between Mary Margaret and Regina Mills.

Rumplestiltskin has promised her answers, she reminds herself as she tries not to look too hard at Mary Margaret. He promised, and he always keeps his word.

"I wanted to kiss him," she says, forcing herself back to the present, to be in this moment, "and I did, and I…it was too soon. That's all." Mary Margaret nods, understanding or at least feigning it, but Emma's expression is still sceptical. Isabelle isn't sure what more she can say; she takes another sip of water, holds the glass between her hands. "I pushed myself too far," she murmurs. "That's all."

"Okay," says Mary Margaret. "And you're feeling alright now?"

"Yes," Isabelle nods. "Just fine." It's perhaps an exaggeration – her mind and heart and soul still feel broken, abused. She still cannot make sense of everything, cannot fit the pieces together, but that will take time and answers. But for now she is as fine as she can be, and it's all she can say in answer to Mary Margaret's question.

"And Mr Gold?" Emma presses her, leaning forwards again. "What about him?"

"He…" Isabelle shrugs, finishes her water. "He understood." He'd been hurt, at first – hurt that she'd run from him, but even then she thinks he had been trying to understand despite his offended pride. And then, of course, the hurt had been eclipsed by the revelation that she knew, that she is Belle once more.

Emma sighs, but doesn't say anything. Isabelle looks at her, sees the frustration and the confusion. Emma hates not understanding things, but Isabelle can't explain this, not clearly.

Love, she's found, rarely lends itself to simple explanations.

She can't explain it, and so she offers a distraction. "The Mayor came to see me at work today," she says, and Emma grimaces. "She was…threatening me, saying if I couldn't work my contracted hours she'd have to review my contract."

"You were sick!" Mary Margaret protests. "You get sick pay, don't you?"

"Apparently not if I don't notify her before I'm absent," says Isabelle with a sigh. "But you know she's just waiting for an excuse." Waiting for a reason to fire Isabell, to have her declared unfit – in more ways than one. She can't help a shiver, wraps her arms around herself.

"I wish I knew why she has it in for you," says Emma, frustrated and disgusted, the white knight who needs to know the why of everything. "Nothing you could have done to her could possible merit everything she's done to you."

Isabelle glances at Mary Margaret, just quickly, as she wonders what Snow White did to the Queen.

"She's vindictive," Mary Margaret says, oblivious. "I don't know, there's just something in her that doesn't…forgive."

Emma's nodding. "I know, I get that – but surely something must have started it?" She looks at Isabelle, who shrugs. She knows why she was imprisoned in that other world, and can only assume she went from one captivity straight into another. Time stood still, Rumplestiltskin had said – so she was in the hospital for twenty-eight years, even though her memories try to tell her otherwise.

The Queen had taken her from the town close to the Dark Castle because she might be useful against Rumplestiltskin; she had been imprisoned in this world, she imagined, for much the same reason.

"I don't think it really matters," she says. "I'm sure she thinks she has her reasons." She shrugs, gets up and goes to refill her glass. "It doesn't matter," she says, glancing back at them. "She – she can't get me again."

Mary Margaret's smile is brilliant, and Emma's expression is no less pleased. This is perhaps the first time she's said such a thing, the first time she's believed it enough to say it.

Regina Mills will not get her again. Isabelle has protectors – Emma, Archie – who will prevent it happening, if Regina should decide to try.

And Belle has the fiercest protector of all, the most powerful man in the world who loves her. He loves her and he always has. Whatever else there is between them, whatever regrets and sorrows and heartbreaks, the love is there. It is a warmth, a flame in her heart, a suit of armour against the Queen's barbs.

Rumplestiltskin, that creature of legend, the strange man she had grown to know over her months in his service. He loves her, and Belle will never let them be parted again.

"I need to eat," she says, changing the subject. "I, uh…I'm back so late, I'm not sure I feel like cooking. We could order in?"

"Will you eat it?" Emma asks, direct, and Isabelle nods. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," says Isabelle firmly, goes to the drawer where they keep the take-out menus and brings a handful to the table. "I'm sure. I'll eat a proper meal, I promise."

"If this is the influence he's having on you," says Mary Margaret, sudden and quiet and fierce, "I'm glad."

Isabelle flushes, shrugs her shoulders. She can't answer, doesn't know whether it's Mr Gold or the insistent merging of two selves, of two sets of memories, that is causing her to feel so…secure.

That's it, she realises, she feels secure in a way she hasn't felt once in the three months since she was released from the hospital, or the ten years before, or even during childhood and adolescence. She wonders if that's the effect of the curse, if the stripping of all happy endings had caused Isabelle French to be insecure, uncertain, unhappy. Perhaps unstable – perhaps her father and the Mayor are right, perhaps she was actually mentally ill at one point.

Too many questions, and she can't go to Mr Gold tonight to seek answers. They'd agreed on that whilst eating lunch at the library, agreed that she must stay in the apartment and reassure her friends, keep up the pretence that she is only Isabelle French.

Because the Queen will be watching, and she must not find out.

"Chinese," suggests Emma, rifling through the menus. "Mary Margaret?"

"We had Chinese last time," points out Mary Margaret, and she smiles at Isabelle. "What about pizza?"

"Either sounds good," says Isabelle, her decision-making used up by the suggestion that they order take-out rather than sticking to her carefully-planned menu. "I don't mind, really."

Mary Margaret nods, her smile not faltering for a moment. "You liked the Chinese we had, didn't you?" she says. "We'll have that again."

"But you want pizza," Isabelle protests half-heartedly. Emma glances up from the menus, lifts an eyebrow, and Mary Margaret shakes her head.

"I don't mind," she says. "Come on, come and look at the menu with me and we can work out what you want."