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'You are a beautiful woman who loved an ugly man – really, really loved me. You find goodness in others, and when it is not there, you create it… So when you look in the mirror, and don't know who you are – that's who you are!..' His voice, breathless and strained over the phone line, voice of a dying man saying the last goodbye, leaving her all his immense love as a legacy to give her strength to survive alone in the world without him – that was what first came to her as she drunk the potion from her chipped cup, destroyed by her in despair and restored now by his magic. His voice, his words sounded in her mind while everything else was still blurred and distorted; and with them came the clarity, the knowledge of her true self. The woman who loves him; the woman he needs – that's who she is, whatever her name is. Funny, he never told her he loved her, not in the actual words, but it did not matter now: his love sounded in his dying voice, and it was blinding. She knew he'd give her anything, forgive her anything, share with her everything. She knew herself, and she knew him.

As she lifts up her eyes, she has a most curious series of visions; unlike the last time she was waking up in the forest by the wishing well, when the Queen's curse has lifted and she saw various things and scenes from her past, the only image that assaults her now is his face. His beloved face: his eyes, dark and flat and warm and caring, his thin carved nose, nostrils flaring; his lips, ever ready to twist in a grin or to droop in a resigned line; a face grotesque and beautiful, old and ageless, beastly and human. She sees his face as she first saw him, green and golden, with reptilian eyes holding her gaze; his face closed and unreadable as he watched her go around his castle; his face open and vulnerable as she hugged him in the woods; his face transformed with wonder as she leaned to kiss him; his face contorted with fury as he rejected her; his face cold and dead as he was sending her away; his face pale and shattered as he saw her enter his shop; his face crumpled with tenderness as he promised to protect her; his face sad and withdrawn as he tried to let her go; his face alight with longing and stained with tears as he possessed her; his face questioning her presence in his life; his face pained as he told her the truth about himself; his face open to hope as she looked at him across the border; his face stricken with pain as she rejected him in the hospital; his face hopeful as she promised to let him help her, and touched his hand; his face devastated as he saw her under another curse; his face dark with shame and pain and desire as he loved her even when she was not herself. These faces, which she saw so clearly now, told the story of their love, love that always found a way to bind them, even in the weirdest circumstances. This love obliterated all doubts; it knew no shame.

This love gives her strength to face him, and when she does, she feels a pang of great fear. He has changed terribly. He looks a thousand years old – his eyes are eternal in their darkness, even the tears cannot soften them. She remembers how the look of complete desolation would come over him sometimes in the past, and how he would search for something in himself, and this something, unknown to her then, would help him pick himself up. This something is gone now. His strength is gone. And, as she now knows what had driven him trough all these years, she guesses the reason, and shudders for him.

'You have lost your son', she says, and it is not a question.

He doesn't even nod – a flicker of his eyelids tells her that she is right.

There are no words she can say that would mean anything now, or change anything, or help in any way. But no words are needed; she just holds him, as tightly as she can, wishing her warmth to penetrate the ice of despair that encrusts his body, her fingers stroking the hair on the back of his head, as if he were a child; she just listens to his sobbing voice telling of failure, and whispers helplessly that she is sorry, thought she doesn't even know what she is sorry for. For his loss? For not being there for him when he needed her? He says he is sorry for waking her up to die, and she doesn't quite understand him. What does it matter to her if she dies or not, as long as she is with him? How could he die without her, and how could he doubt that she'd want to be with him when she died? She even feels relieved. There is no need to do anything now, to fight or to prove anything. There is finality to what's happening, a sublime justice, and wonderful certainty. The only thing she has to do, as the earth shudders with waves of dark destructive magic, is to hold him to her heart and let him know that she is with him – now and forever.

Forever doesn't need to be a long time: it can be lived in a second, if this second is filled with meaning and purpose and love. Forever is when their lips touch their tears. Forever is when they are together. That is how she feels as they embrace, that is how she feels as they sit on the floor, holding hands, his fingers entwined with hers, giving them a gentle squeeze from time to time. She feels suspended in time; his touch is the only thing real to her, even though this touch is strangely… fleshless. His soul, deadly tired and slipping towards final peace, is touching her, not his body; but it is not a bad thing. Their bodies had their share of touching in the last few days. Now is the time for their souls to touch each other.

And then the shuttering of the world stops, all of a sudden. She looks up at him, searchingly. His face is drawn and grey. He closes his eyes in a very tired way and says softly: 'They have stopped the curse. You are safe now. You are not going to die'.

She nods, silently noting his choice of words. 'You are not going to die', he says. Not 'we'. She needs to pick this subject up, but she knows he is not ready, so she just asks with a glimmer of her usual curiosity: 'How do you know?'

He shows her a shadow of his twisted smile and taps his temple: 'I just know'. And then he gives a rugged breath, as if stifling a sob, and shuts his closed eyes even tighter, as if trying to lock tears inside his eyelids. He must be thinking of his magic, she guesses: magic lets him know what happens in the world, his magic that is so great and powerful, yet so helpless in the face of his loss. His magic failed him when he needed it most; it must feel like such a burden now, such a sneer of fate. He probably hates it now. And this is wrong: his magic is part of him, and he should not hate any part of himself; not when she loves him so. She needs to do something to make him feel better; to make him feel anything else but pain. She cannot stand the sight of him, sitting on the floor like that, with eyes closed, defeated.

She needs to at least distract him with something, so she says: 'Can't we go out now? I want to see what happened to the town. And I want a breath of fresh air…' She indicates the table with unfinished drinks vaguely, and knows her words to be true: the other girl she has been just moments ago was not entirely sober when things started happening.

'Of course'. He nods, and stands up heavily, leaning on his cane with one hand and on the counter with the other.

It pains her so to see him so… frail.

'I think I will need to… change', she gives herself a look over.

He nods, again. 'Your things are in the closet in the backroom. I kept them in case…' He pauses, painfully. 'Well, in case you came back'.

She goes to the closet he indicated, and opens it. The pretty dresses that he gave her when she first came back – they are all here, and somehow the picture of them hanging there in such forlorn order makes her think of closets of dead people, which their survived relatives can't clean for months, unable to make themselves let go of memories. Her father kept her mother's dresses for years – she used to be so scared of that closet when she was a little girl; she thought it was filled with ghosts. She picks one of her old dresses, and hastily puts it on, trying not to think of how her vulgar nail varnish clashes with the elegant fabric.

God, what horror he must have lived through while she did not remember herself. How lost and lonely he must have felt. How horrible her change must have been for him; and yet how bravely he faced it, and how valiantly he did everything he could so that they could be together still. He accepted her even though she pained him. He changed for her, just as he always changed for her. When she wanted light in him, he strove to give her light. When she wanted darkness, he gave her darkness. She once asked him to let her in, and he really did everything he could to accommodate her in his world, whoever she was. Well, at least he knows now that she would always love him, whatever happened to her. He knows now that she'd love him even if she wasn't in her right mind. And because of that, she would never regret what happened – she'd never regret the abandonment and the dark fall they lived through. It was still about them; she always knew that two girls lived in her, just as two men lived in him. The dreamer and the practical girl, she used to call them mentally; the one who aspired to things and the one who lived in the material world. And, even though the material girl proved to be a little bit too down-to-earth, she knew now that both were needed to be her; they were inseparable, just as both the man and the beast were inseparable in him.

If only she could find a way to wake him from his despair. If only she could find a way to ease his pain without destroying him, now that she sees him so clearly.

She feels like crying, and checks herself sternly. Now is not the time to cry, and to lean on him for support. She is the one who must be strong now.

She goes to the hand-basin he has installed in the back room, and splashes her face with water. She picks a brush and rearranges her hair. She wants to look decent.

She wants to look like herself.

They go out of the shop, and walk the town. She slips her hand under his arm, cuddling closer to him, as she used to, and he gives her a fleeting, grateful look. It seems he is grateful for her attempts to behave normally, though they feel so weird. Nothing is normal in the world they face; it did survive, but nothing in it is the same. The sun shines, the sea is bright and the wind crisp, but all that has an eerie edge to it. Great magic happened here today, and it always leaves a trace – just as it always has a price.

They go to the port, and find awful commotion there, and learn that the boy, his grandson, has been kidnapped. She feels him freeze at her side at the news, and shudders, inwardly. She did think that she would not regret anything that happened between them, and she meant it, but there is an exception. Her urging him to destroy the boy she'd never accept in herself; not just because of the horror of the very thought, but also because it showed how weak and helpless and selfish she was. She clung to him so, she was so afraid to lose him and so eager to keep him for herself that she was ready to urge him to do the unthinkable – to commit a crime darker than anything he ever did. There would have been no going back from that. She would have ruined him, beyond redemption – all because she was selfish and afraid!

She is thinking about that as she listens to all the good people in town making plans for saving the boy – he with them. The guilt at her selfishness is paramount in her mind as they all prepare to board the ship of a pirate who once tried to kill her – of a pirate who destroyed her memories; his mortal enemy, now ready to help too. She has to redeem her weakness, somehow. She needs to be at his side and help him, as well as she can. She knows she is strong enough for that.

And then he turns to her, with a heavy sigh, and says: 'I must go away now, Belle. And you… You must stay here'.

'What? Why?..' Will this man ever seize to startle her?

And then he explains, carefully, that she is needed here – she is the only person whom he can trust with protecting the town, it seems. He gives her the spell to perform, and she is surprised: why does he think she will be able to do it? She is not magical. And then she thinks, fearfully, of the curious fact that he had the spell ready and with him. Why is he prepared for this turn of events? Did he know what was going to happen? He sees the future; did he know he was going to go away and leave her behind?

And then, as the full meaning of casting the cloaking spell, hiding the town, hits her, she voices her gravest question. 'You are not coming back, are you?'

She barely listens to his words as he explains his need to sacrifice himself for the noble task. Her heart is screaming. Oh, she knew it, she knew it all along ever since the moment she saw his grey, washed-out face there in the shop when he woke her up. He doesn't want to live. He did not simply accept that he's going to die – he is going to seek death. His loss means more to him than she does. He sends her away, again, but this separation is going to be final.

She cannot face it. She cannot agree with that. They love each other, and it matters; love cannot be always defeated; she cannot be forever abandoned.

She must stop him. She cannot live without him. She cannot be alone, again.

She looks into her soul, and sees the dark desert it is without him. She cannot go back there alone; she cannot stay there alone, loving him and not finding him, forever.

Yet she cannot stop him, because trying to stop him now would be the act of the same selfishness and cowardice that the other, weak girl succumbed to. Stopping him now would mean blocking his way to saving himself; keeping him with her would destroy him…

But these are just thoughts, and they are good and right, but they are not the main reason for her inaction. The real reason that she cannot stop him now is that she cannot really reach him – again. His guilt and his readiness to die separate him from her; just as in his castle, when he was sending her away, something stands between them, making him untouchable to the full force of her love. Ah, it hurts so! It feels so unjust. Yet she cannot be offended – not this time. She cannot argue; he is right, he needs to go…

If only she could find a way to hold him – to bind him to her, somehow. She needs to find something, or to do something that would overcome death, for which he is so eager.

She remembers how, as she was leaving then, she told him he'd regret his decision forever, and his life would be nothing without her – just an empty heart, and a chipped cup. She thought these were just words – angry words of a hurt girl – back then. But it worked, somehow – it made their bond stronger, and look how important it made this cup for him.

All her love is gathered in her words as a hand in a fist as she tells him, looking into his eyes, gripping his shoulders: 'I will see you again'.

Something happens – something stirs in the air as she says the words. Some ripple comes across the world – subtle, but unmistakable. Magic is happening. And, wishing to make it stronger, wishing love to be omnipotent, wishing it with all the foolish force of her foolish ravaged heart, she reaches to kiss him. Let the good ones look at them now. Let them be amazed at the strange girl who loves a monster. They shunned him, always. They despised him, always, even as they asked for his help. Her, they seemed to accept as one of their own. Yet she was always an odd one, never a part of the crowd. She was always an outcast, and she doesn't really belong with them, all these heroes. She belongs with him.

Let them see how the Dark One is loved. Let them see the man he is, for her.

Let him see who he is, for her.

As she kisses him, sobbing, in front of all astounded eyes, she sees or feels nothing but his lips, salty with their tears, his warmth, his catching breath. She hears nothing but his voice in her head. 'That's who you are!' he said. 'That's who you are', she tells him silently.

And then something changes – really changes – in the world. Great wave of magic, unseen to everyone but to him and to her crashes them, breaking the wall of ice around him. She can almost see the shards falling down. And she feels it again – the power to reach him, the power to change him, the power to help him. Their bond used to be a thin tread tugging at their hearts and glowing in the dark, stubbornly, all these years. It is a flow of light now, so wide and bright that it doesn't connect them – it envelops them.

He feels it, too – of course he does. As they press their foreheads together and look into each other's eyes, there are so many things in his gaze. Regret for everything that happened. Joy at everything that happened. Acceptance of their fate, as they shape it. He is exasperated at her stubbornness, and grateful for it. He is still in pain, he still thinks that he knows what will happen to them, but there is a glimmer of hope; he is ready to believe her. He wants to believe her, even though he cannot, yet. There is love in his eyes, and it is not hopeless anymore. He feels her love, and knows its' power, and he has his strength back. He is humbled, but not defeated.

She can let him go, now. She can let him go, for they will be together, even though separated by space and time. She can let him go, with all his pain and guilt, for she knows she can always reach him. They will always be connected. She would bring him back, if needs be – she would call to him and he will hear her voice. Their hearts would beat as one, and even if his stops, hers will make him go on.

She turns and walks away from him, willing herself not to cry, not to make things harder for him by showing how much she hurts. There will be time to cry later, when she is alone – when she realizes just how completely alone she is.

She knows he is watching her, as she goes, she hears his sigh as he comes aboard. She knows everything that is happening to him; it is as if they have a joined mind or a single heart between them two.

At a distance, she stops and turns around to see the harbor. The ship had started sailing; the magic bean was thrown into the waves, and the huge vortex is ready to swallow the ship. Her heart skips a beat as the ship disappears under the waves, taking him into a different world, and waters go still. For a second, her world is empty.

And then she feels it again – the light of their love, strong, stubborn, insistent, connecting them beyond any borders. She is smiling as her eyes fill with tears.

He's with her now, as she is with him. She will wait for him when he returns, as she promised him on the city border. He'll come back. She will bring him back.

She will see him again.

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