CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – After the scene in the Library (Future Belle and Rumple)

Belle led Rumple to the balcony outside of the library. She held her hands clasped tightly in front of her, she was pressing them together to try and keep herself calm. Once they were outside, they stood side by side next to the balcony railing, a good three feet separating them. Both of them stared out across the forest beneath them, not daring to meet each other's gaze. Rubble and branches was strewn around them, leftover from the storm their daughter had just created.

Seeing her in that dress again, he hoped against hope that maybe she did still love him. Rumple cleared his throat a few times before hesitantly saying "Belle, I – "

"No, Rumplestiltskin, I believe I should speak first." Belle interrupted. She wanted to get out all she had to say before breaking down, which she knew would inevitably happen if he started this conversation.

She took a deep breath, tried to tell herself to stop shaking, and said "Um….I, uh….." This was not going how she had dreamed it would go. Ever since the day she banished him, she had thought and dreamt about this moment, planning out exactly what she would say, what accusations she would make, her grand exit leaving him forever, and now that the moment had finally come, she was speechless.

She tried starting again. "Rumplestiltskin, I, um….I just wanted to say that you've been excellent with Colette so far, and I, uh, appreciate all that you're doing for her, and…" This wasn't working.

"Belle," he said. That was it. Her mental walls holding back all emotion crumbled around her. She leaned against the balcony, and started quietly sobbing.

Through her tears, she said "I never stopped. Not even when I banished you, did I stop loving you. I can't seem to help it. And when I found out I was going to have Colette, I felt like I was banishing you all over again, but instead from her life as well as mine. When we went back to the Enchanted Forest, I wanted desperately to come back to you, but your actions with the Queens of Darkness reinforced the feeling that you loved your powers more than me. And I couldn't let my heart be broken again. I just couldn't." She had slumped onto the floor of the balcony now, leaning her back on the railing. Rumple just stared down at her, his face an unreadable mixture of emotions.

"I-I accept now that you love your powers more than me, but I still can't help but see the man that I fell in love with – that I'm still in love with." She had tried for years to keep all of this in, acting as if everything was completely fine, that she had forgotten about him completely. All of her emotions coming out at once was painful, but a relief all the same. "When I found out Colette had magic, I was relieved. I sent her to you immediately, hoping you could find it in yourself to love her at least a little bit. I wanted you to know that you had a daughter, at least. She talks about you all the time, you know. She really looks up to you, and through her I saw that you have changed. At least, you are no longer power obsessive, or evil, or conniving, or dark, or – or…but I know you can't love me now. Not with my actions."

She took a deep breath, and continued "I don't regret it though. You were about to kill people, Rumple! I mean, Rumplestiltskin….I couldn't let that happen. And when I saw that you lied to me about the dagger, I just couldn't believe that you could love anyone but yourself and your powers. You lied to me! I thought you trusted me!" She covered her face with her hands. She felt pathetic, like the fool she was for loving him this much, after all he had done.

Rumple dropped to his knees now, tears streaming down his face. He reached out to her, but didn't dare hold her. Not yet. "Belle, I did. I do. But I lost sight of it. I found the Sorcerer's Hat during our honeymoon, and after that point I was pulled between my lust for power and my love for you. I struggled, but when the Snow Queen tried taking over the town, I thought I saw a way out, to have you both. But trying to do that, I lost sight of just how beautiful it was to have your love and your love alone. I – I agree, that you should have banished me, and I regret my actions with the Queens of Darkness, and living alone, I see how wrong I was."

"Oh, is that right?" Finally Belle was able to channel some anger through her crying. "Living alone with your power for seventeen years was what it took for you to see that? Finally showed you how empty having power is?"

"Belle, I don't have my powers. I've given most of them up." This startled her. She finally looked up at him. She saw that he looked genuine, but she still couldn't trust him.

"I can still travel places in a flash, and wield magical objects, but I gave up the rest. The rest of my powers are locked inside the dagger, which is hidden away where no one but myself can find. It was the first thing I did when we returned to the Enchanted Forest. I wanted to prove to you, to the world that I have changed!"

Belle sincerely hoped this was true, but she had to know for certain. "Prove it."

He thought for a moment, then suddenly reached out towards Belle, as if he was pull out her heart. She gasped, expecting a sharp pain, but there was nothing. She looked down.

His hand rested where her heart was, pressing against her collarbone, but he couldn't. He couldn't take it. He moved his hand up to her shoulder, and pulled her into his arms.

"I did it for you, Belle. I have never stopped loving you, and I never will. Thank you."

"For what?"

"Banishing me. I think that was probably the only way I was going to see the error of my ways. Belle, do you really still love me?"

She thought about it. He had proved it to her, true, but she would have to ask her daughter to see if this was indeed true. And she would have Regina test him as well. But as for now, she decided to risk her heart once more.

"Yes, Rumple."

She returned his embrace, and kissed him the way she did in her dreams. He started laughing, the relieved sort of laugh someone has when they thought something would never happen, and then magically it does.

"You know, I've really missed hearing you call me that."

She just hugged him tighter. "We should probably find our daughter now and explain this all to her."

"Ah, yes."

With that, they stood up, and smiling at one another but not fully trusting that this wasn't a dream, walked hand in hand back into the palace.