A/N: So with the recent episodes being aired, my fiction has officially become an AU. You will see what I mean in the upcoming chapters. I hope you guys don't mind too badly, but that's what happens when you write fanfiction for an ongoing fandom. Le sigh. I am also taking a turn a little from the show and did subject FTL Belle to some tortures of what Regina told Rumple about. Well, I hope you all don't mind and enjoy! I am almost done with the whole story and hope to continue updating around once a week. Happy reading and please review. I love to hear from you all!

Chapter Two: Monster Revisited

"I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.

I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me.

I love you for the part of me that you bring out."

~ Roy Croft

Belle was surrounded by fire. It licked at her skin, shoved closer to her back and arms by men in cleric uniforms. They were shouting nonsense at her, things she didn't understand. Phrases like 'monster' and 'purity' all jumbled together and she screamed as one of the flames made contact with a portion of her back. The burning sensation didn't stop and she felt the tears on her cheeks sizzle from the heat around her. These men were devils, taking pleasure in her pain.

The hot poker finally left her skin and she fell to the floor. Her eyes were still blurry and she tried to watch the men closely. They moved away from her and seemed to have another victim in their clutches close by. It was strange, it was always her. Never another.

The flames rose up and began to poke against another body. It convulsed and jerked as the pokers repeatedly broke and marred the unique skin of the other captive. She heard the screams, the yells of agony and she knew then.

"No!" she yelled weakly as if her voice wouldn't work, "Don't! He isn't a monster! Stop!"

One of the clerics turned back to her and his burning eyes of ember drove into hers.

"Don't!" Belle sat up in her bed, her hand over her racing heart, and her breath in gasps. She was utterly alone. She closed her eyes briefly and tried to shut away the tears that tried to spill. She got her heart rate to settle and her breathing normal, but she couldn't help the empty part of her gut. Something was wrong. So very wrong.

Against better judgment, she put a large jacket on over her pajamas and headed out her door.

Another aggravated sigh escaped his throat and another scroll was pushed out of the way to make room for another. Rumplestiltskin was growing annoyed and frustrated in his search through the old parchments. He never thought to check on the origins on the blade that had cursed him. He knew it was magic, and dark magic at that. He never thought that it was of someone's making. Although, all magic comes from somewhere; he knew that for a fact. Even when the monster came to him toward the beginning of his transformation and whispered suggestions of death and chaos, he always believed that it was the blade or his own dark desires finally taking over. He couldn't imagine that the version that barely showed itself was an actual presence and entity all its own.

He spun the dark dagger in question with one finger at the side of the desk while his other hand scanned over the scrolls. He didn't want to have anything to do with the damned item, but keeping it close made him more focused. It made him dig deeper into the material, search, find anything that could be of help should the time come he would have to fight. The closer he had the dagger to himself the safer that he and Belle would be from the backlash that was coming from his old 'master'. He scoffed at the title even now. He was no one's servant. Never has been the one for servitude, never a good color on him.

His mind, still thoroughly focused on the task at hand, began to think back to the first couple of days after killing Zoso and gaining the power of the Dark One. He was still weak in his mind. He had a single, prevailing goal to keep Baelfire safe from the atrocities of the Ogre Wars. If that meant that the power over took him, he was willing to pay if it meant his boy's safety. As the power began to manifest, he felt his leg healed first. To stand on the once broken limb was a miracle, and then again he knew it was a curse that would live with him until he was stabbed or until he chose to end it himself. Zoso did try to warn him. All magic had its price.

You don't worry about the price. It feels good, doesn't it? To take what they don't want to let go. The thing they would miss the most…

He didn't recognize the voice. He knew it was the curse. It had to be. He heard the voice in his mind; placating every worry or rationalize everything he saw as wrong. When he began killing the voice only intensified and pushed him on. The only other voice able to super cede it was his son's. Even then, his wasn't loud enough in most cases. Baealfire's voice wasn't bright enough to chase the shadows of the blade away and bring back the father that he knew. Then Baelfire was lost.

You are nothing without me.

That was the first night he saw a face that went with the voice- the face of his inner devil. A handsome face that he knew was a mask to hid a true gruesome monster beneath. It snuck up as he slept, the night he lost his son. Spoke of a curse so complete that it would find his son and punish all those who opposed him. Speaking to the most desperate part of him: the mourning father. The face grinned as the curse took shape and lives were stamped out when they stood in his way. He felt himself slipping away as more of the monster, the devil took his place.

You are not loved. You are not precious. That's why he left so easily. How she left so easily.

It was the same face that he stared down in Belle's library today. Slicked back hair with a sharp jaw and eyes a blaze with the fires he was sure sat in Hell. Trying his hand at friendly chit-chat while trying to collect on a person's soul. It hadn't spoken to him in so long, but then again he didn't need it to when he found he could be a beast all on his own. The devil lost his grip on him long ago.

You only have me and that's all you amount to. A vessel for me.

He stopped listening to the voice when he found some kind of solace that there was hope. The hope was locked up in his castle, a willful prisoner in exchange for the innocence of a land. It wore a bright blue dress and cleaned all of his collection as he spun in the corner to forget all that the devil voice had already cost and gained him.

Claim her. She is yours. She has given herself to the monster. Show her the beast, give her the beast.

The things the voice tried to convince him to do to her. The tortures and the pain that would have been inflicted were too numerous. The stolen innocence that the devil tried to enact through him was not something that he was willing to mar her soul with. That was when the voice began to fade and hers took its place. Her laugh would fill his mind as feelings began to submerge him in a state of bliss from just one touch.

Even after he told his hope to leave and it died for a time, the voice didn't return. Not completely… because the hope turned into an angel to keep the devil at bay; an angel that lived within a chipped tea cup.

Then the monster only had himself to turn to.

He had so many deaths and so much chaos replaying in his head, he no longer needed a mentor to push his deals and manipulations along. He knew of the monster he had become. After his light had once again dimmed, but not completely faded, he embraced the beast, the monster and continued on in the only way he knew how. Deals. Deals and agreements that he wouldn't decline because they always had something he desired and he was always up for a trade.

He closed his eyes as the blade still spun over his one finger, suspended in air as the memories of all his deals and deaths spun just as fiercely in his head. So much blood on his hands that should never have been spilt. He always wondered if that voice was him- was really his darkest desires. He never really believed them to be so.

But he couldn't help wondering still, where the monster in him had begun and the human ended.

"Did he worry you that much?"

A voice reached into his reverie and his eyes shifted to the doorway of the study. Belle stood in the doorway with a large jacket over a pair of silk pajamas he remembered picking out. She held the jacket closed over her and watched his movements. She smiled shyly like she knew she did something frowned upon, "You didn't lock the back door again."

He quickly waved his hand that was spinning the blade and sent it back to its hiding place. He knew that Belle wouldn't try to take the blade from him, but he also knew that she didn't like seeing the blade now knowing that it was the source of his powers. He showed her it once when he began to tell her about his powers, but she stopped him and told him to never show her again; to never tell her where he hid it.

"Did you walk here?" he asked, the concern in his voice was prevalent, "Is anything wrong? Did he come back? I wasn't expecting…"

"I know," she nodded and pushed her hand out toward him to calm him, "He didn't come back, don't worry."

He took a breath of relief.

She looked at the floor. She began to shake her head and turned as if to leave, "I shouldn't have come."

"Belle, wait," he said and stood up from behind his desk. He quickly came around the desk and stood next to her. A quick look at her face, he could tell that she had been crying- in her sleep, more than likely as it looked like she hadn't noticed the tracks down her cheeks yet. He sighed and frowned as he knew, "The nightmares again?"

"They creep in when I least expect it," she shrugged and gave him a smile as if she acting like a child. She tapped her foot on the hardwood floor and glanced back up at him, "I woke up alone and…"

Rumplestiltskin frowned a little deeper. After the first night he found that Belle had nightmares and sometimes night terrors. She would wake up screaming about flames and beatings that she had endured a lifetime ago. She sometimes woke up and found herself alone and would start crying and sobbing, disillusioned that she was back in the hidden mental hospital. That night that he found her crying in the corner of the guest room, he decided that she would never sleep alone again and moved her into his room. He couldn't imagine what might have happened when she woke up in that small bed, all on her own.

"Oh sweetheart, I am sorry," he opened his arms in invitation. He wasn't sure if she would take him up on it, but he wanted her to know that it was still an option. She surprised him again and leaned into him. She wrapped her arms around his chest and leaned her forehead against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her to hug her tightly to him and spoke into her hair, "I am so sorry."

"When I used to wake up in the bed here, I felt your warmth next to me, so I knew I wasn't alone completely," she whispered and closed her eyes against his heartbeat, "Your smell was there. This is the first time since the hospital that I knew that I was on my own. I panicked… It was all fire and clerics… "

"I really don't like your father," he growled as he now knew that part of what Regina said was correct. She was burned and 'cleansed' when she went back to her father. She repeatedly forgave the man for that since it happened a lifetime ago. Rumplestiltskin still wondered how her skin didn't have any remaining marks from it, yet relieved that she wouldn't have them to remind her more than what she did remember.

"It's over," she reminded him, "I didn't really know what to do, so I followed my first instinct and came to you. It was silly… I just think that I needed to know you were still here."

"I will always be here," he reminded her and kissed her forehead on impulse, "Never think it silly."

She smiled at the gesture and then turned to the desk with the many scrolls on it, "So what are you studying so diligently that it keeps you out of bed?"

"I am trying desperately to be informed and prepared for an impending match."

"So this is about that man," she nodded as he pushed them both back toward desk with her still wrapped in one of his arms. She looked over some of the scrolls and at the small computer screen to his side with only a few… what did he call them? Windows, that's right. His free arm reached his work and documents as he shifted them. She looked up at him and tilted her head to the reading materials, "So what exactly are we looking for? Weaknesses? Points of interest? Origin?"

"I am looking for a way that he can't touch us," he said and grabbed another scroll at the top of his desk, "I just don't think I can find it with what I have."

"You are resilient, you will find it," she said as if it was a known fact and read over some of the scrolls nearby, "I can help, if you would like. I am a speed reader."

"One of your favorite hobbies," he nodded in agreement and then frowned slightly, "I just don't know if you'd like what you'd read about the dagger and of me."

"Rum," she cupped his face and looked him in the eyes, "I know you did some horrible things when you were the Dark One. I know that you still battle your shadows and will succumb to some. But I will not let you battle this alone. Now… what are we looking for?"

She turned her head back to the scrolls and motioned with one hand toward them as if he would show her where he left off.

He chuckled and shook his head in wonder. He loved this woman. This woman who loved a monster and the man inside even after what he had done to her. The woman who had done so much to save him and came back with forgiveness when she should have pushed him off his own damn castle.

"For the most part, I am trying to find weakness, but mostly I am trying to find where I ended and the monster began. Where and how he began to change me and I never came back."

She smiled sadly at him and kissed him quickly on the cheek again before she turned back to the scrolls ahead of them, "So where do we start?"

"That's the thing… I don't know."

Donovan walked the chilling streets of Storybrooke in the early hours. The street lights had not been replaced yet and the slight overcast made the streets so fantastically dark. He soaked up the environment and watched as he slight shadow stretched ahead of him and taunted the souls that had followed him to this world. The souls shrieked and moaned so loudly, but he knew that he was the only one that could hear them. They were his music, his unfinished symphony of pain and chaos. How he loved to compose these pieces in the quiet of night. He would have to give them a little more consideration. They could be of some use if Rumplestiltskin continues to be more difficult.

He walked to the water's edge by the dock and titled his head as he studied the far off horizon line of the water. There were no boats out from this port. They were all too scared to lose their memories, their lives that had been torn from them. He wondered how far they would have to go before they did lose what they grabbed so firmly to.

He looked straight down at the water and watched his human face ripple with the slight tide coming in. He smirked and flicked his head to the side to call to his partner.

"I see that you have no sense of time," the voice mumbled from the water portal. A slight hint that they were sleeping just a moment before.

"Did she come to see you?" he asked with a dark undertone. He had no time for complaints and loss of sleep.

"Days ago," the voice grumbled, apparently unaffected by the warning voice.

"And?"

"We have our bearings," the voice agreed, "Do we have passage yet?"

"As soon as she thinks you have it, I will enact it."

"I want my end of the bargain full filled."

"And you will," Donovan smiled with a chuckle, "Keep her blind to these conversations. I want to make sure she doesn't see the end coming."

"Consider it done."

Donovan swiped his hand over the water and the ripples disappeared and the tide continued like normal, "Mortals are always so impatient."