57

Misplaced; unsettled: that was how she felt since that first moment in the morning when she woke up, languid and still pleasantly tired from the passionate efforts of the night before and found him gone, their bed empty except for the red rose and a note left next to her pillow. The note said, "My darling Belle, Miss Swan asked for my help; I shall be in the shop. I love you", and it made her blush pleasantly — he never wrote anything so simple, straightforward, and honest before. It was a nice note — it plainly stated the reason for his absence, and it also expressed his feelings. That note showed how much he had changed and it reasserted her in the decision she made the night before — that is, to come back to him.

The rose, however, told her something different. It told her he was up a long time before her: he got up, showered and shaved, gone out to get the rose, and came back to place it beside her. In the past, when he was the Dark One — when he had magic — it would take him but a moment to give her any pretty little present. It would take him time now, when he had to do things properly as ordinary men would.

She appreciated the effort, and liked the flower. Yet despite the pleasantness of the present she felt irrational resentment because he left her alone in bed — as he used to in the past, when he had magic and was always gone on some mysterious errands, leaving her abandoned and alone, a useless silly princess. She would have preferred him to stay with her, and wake her up with a kiss. Perhaps they would have spent some more time in bed. She would have loved that; she spent so much time apart from him, for reasons, which seemed sound at the time but felt totally absurd now, when they were reunited again. Her silly pride, her self-righteousness, her embarrassment at him changing, his pride and his all-too noble unwillingness to assert his rights... These things kept them apart for much too long, and she never even realized how much she missed him, body and soul, body especially. She only had to touch him to start trembling with need; had to taste his lips to realize how hungry for him she was. That night felt... Magical, despite the absence of his magic — everything she loved about him, everything that set her aflame was back, and she just couldn't believe there ever was a moment when she hasn't felt that passion, and seriously considered leaving him.

That night was magical, all-important. It was exhausting and glorious. But it wasn't enough. She would have loved him to devour her in the morning as he did by night. Or they could have showered together — she felt her cheeks getting hotter at the idea. Whatever business Emma had with him, it could have waited. He was not the Dark One anymore, he was an ordinary man; he didn't have to answer urgent calls and rush to aid everyone around. He could have spent some quiet and relaxed time with his wife. Well, may be not so quiet and not at all relaxed, her catching breath told her as she pictured it, but still... He could have stayed and enjoyed the company of the wife he so nearly lost.

She didn't like this thought, about him losing her — it made her feel guilty.

She got up, and went to shower and brush her teeth and there, looking at her own sleepy face in the bathroom mirror, she suddenly placed the feeling that gnawed at her — it seemed familiar, that resentment of the fact that he abandoned her for more important and secret things. And she was right — she already felt like that when they were reunited after the first curse broke, and just started living together, before her father kidnapped her and tried to erase her memory so that she wouldn't stay with the "beast"; before he saved her, and she tried to leave him for the first time, and he came to explain himself in the library, and she asked him on a hamburger date. She felt exactly the same than — under-appreciated, over-protected, kept in the dark.

But that was silly. He was an ordinary man now — a hero, even. What could he possibly keep from her? What secrets would he have?

Yet when she arrived to the shop and found him prepared for the errand that would separate them, yet again, she understood that, however good and ordinary he was now, some things would never change. He was... What he was, and his past, with his terrible wisdom and infinite knowledge of all things magical, would always make him special — and needed by the heroes, who'd always come to him for help, even reluctantly. Perhaps that was what she realized yesterday — what made her come back to him.

He would always be special, and elusive, and something would always take him away from her...

She felt no energy to oppose the situation that happened too many times before. It was useless to argue. Emma wanted his help with opening a portal to the Underworld, for goodness sake — she wanted to get down there and try and save her pirate. Of course he had to go. He was a hero now. He had to help people. And, for some reason, he had to leave her behind again.

He made the whole enterprise sound easy — a quick trip, there and back again, no bother. Yet his eyes, guarded and watchful, told her that things were not easy at all. Yet she didn't want to make another tearful scene.

"Just promise you will come back to me", she said, looking into his sad eyes.

"I always do". There was a hint of a smile in his voice. But she knew it was a solemn promise.

And then he was gone. And all other heroes were gone. And she was left alone again, surrounded by fairies and dwarfs, with Granny watching her worriedly, again, and the only things that kept her company were books and infants she had to baby-sit. Felt like a very unpleasant deja vu.

No wonder she felt unsettled, useless, and dissatisfied. Why did they leave her behind, anyway? She could be useful — she proved that. She was a hero, just as they were. Yet, even while saying that to herself, she remembered how she told herself, many times before — "I am not a hero. I am the wife of the Dark One".

She was his wife, that was true. But he wasn't the Dark One anymore, and everything she felt and knew to be her duty, her life's mission, was somehow lost now.

No wonder she felt lost herself.

She also felt physically weird — tired and sleepy all the time, slightly numb, set apart from reality, and also hungry and lacking appetite all at once. None of the things she usually liked were appealing — she would come to Granny's and stare at the menu, skipping her favorites and settling on something strange such as onion soup. One glass of beer, which she normally liked, made her dizzy and sick. And the smell of milk that she gave to the babies — Snow White's son and the witch's daughter — made her nauseous.

"I must be missing him even more than I realize", she thought, walking through the town in the morning. This time, separation did not feel like acute pain and longing — she felt physically changed just because he wasn't near her. She was not simply unwell; she was not herself anymore.

And then, as it usually happened in the crazy town they lived in, things changed — abruptly and suddenly and with devastating speed. One moment she was simply standing in the nursery room, talking to Blue Fairy, fighting the sense of nausea baby milk brought on. The next, she was falling through a portal, clutching the Wicked Witch's baby, arguing with the witch herself as to who has the right to hold and protect that child.

And then she was sitting on the ground among falling rumble of the closed portal, the baby in her hands, the witch crying and asking to give her the girl, and the place around her looking bizarre and familiar all at once. She was in Storybrooke, yet it wasn't Storybrooke. Houses looked abandoned and dilapidated, as if war came through the town. The sky was not grey with clouds anymore — it was reddish yellow, glowing malignantly.

The trees were dead.

The world looked as if atomic winter descended upon it, and the air felt stilted.

She was in hell. In the Underworld.

It looked strangely like the desert she sometimes imagined herself crossing — that desert in which he was her only companion ever since the moment they first met.

He must have called her here — he needed her help; wanted her by his side. She was sure of it, for she could have sworn that the portal she fell through was created by him... She knew — she would know his magic, she always felt it.

Unthinking, bewildered, clutching the baby to her she walked through this ghost town towards his shop, hoping to find him there.

Her hand trembled as she opened the door. What if something was wrong? What if something happened to him? What would she do in this strange town, alone without him, with a crying baby in her arms?

And than she saw him — walking into the shop with busy, collected air, unsmiling, deep in thought.

He startled as he saw her, as if he didn't expect to see her, which was strange if he called her here.

And then he saw the baby in her arms, and looked momentarily horrified.

He was definitely not glad to see her. He was... Alarmed and dismayed. And uneasy. And than he made an effort, and collected himself, faced her, and started talking.

At first, none of the words he said made any sense.

Hades, the God of the Underworld. Some long-gone deal to save Bae — of course there was always something to do with Bae, what else, whenever there was anything else important to him? The need to pay... Owing Hades something. Owing Hades a baby. What baby? What was he talking about?

Why was he so sad — embarrassed — apologetic? He sold the baby, he had to — why does it matter, this had nothing to do with her, this was not her baby she is holding, nor his, why did he worry so?

Her baby? She — they are going to have a baby? How can he know that?

They are going to have a baby, and he sold it already?

Creating a portal. Bringing her here accidentally.

Creating a portal.

How did he create a portal without magic? How could she feel his magic in that portal if he had no magic?

How could he know about a baby?

And suddenly it hit her.

"You are the Dark One again!"

His apologetic mumbling stopped abruptly. He just nodded.

How could she have been so stupid? So naive?

She was indignant. She felt betrayed. How could he do that to her? How could he trick her again, and why? Getting his magic back. Giving in to darkness again. Trying to keep her in the dark about it, as if she is a little, silly girl?

And it worked! It actually worked! She didn't notice — she fell back into his arms not suspecting a thing! And he didn't say a word — as if her opinion means nothing, as if she means nothing!

"I cannot condone it — you being dark again", she said, and immediately realized just how naive she sounds. Just like a spoiled princess she used to be... "Condone", what a word she had chosen — as if she has power over him, as if her approval or indeed anything she says would ever matter to him!

Contrary to her thoughts, his face became a blank, for a moment — he was hurt by what she said. She knew, for she had seen him hurt by her words many a time before. But then, instead of apologizing and asking her forgiveness, as he usually did when she reproached him, a new expression set on his face. He was... Not cold, but strangely remote. Resigned to his — their — fate. And he talked, in a calm, patient voice, reasoning with her. Trying to make her see the obvious.

Saying aloud what she felt a thousand times, though never dared to admit: she did not fall in love with a man behind the beast. She fell in love with both the beast and the man. And if they are separated, if any one of them disappears, she falls out of love with him.

She fell out of love with him when he changed for the good, when he became an ordinary man and then a hero. She couldn't love him without his magic — without his darkness. And when he became the Dark One again, she rushed into his arms — fell into his bed with urgency almost indecent.

He doesn't need to change for them to be together. She needs to accept whom she really loves.

It as simple and as cruel as that.

It is also true.

It hurt — it hurt him as much as it hurt her, she could see that in the set, sad lines of his face, in his eyes which seemed to be saying good-bye to her even as he talked about their future. He was saying good-bye — to the dream they had, to the bittersweet illusion that fed their love through all they had to endure. They both believed she was meant to change him — to bring light into his life. He wanted it as much as she did. But it didn't happen. It couldn't. We do not choose what we love.

Yet how could he accept it so easily? Why has he given up so completely? And why does he think that she would give up just as easily? Something in the depths of her heart told her that she was wrong and unjust — nothing came easy to him, he must have had a great and painful fight before he accepted their fate. But she was too hurt by his words and too stunned by his apparent calmness to think straight. All she could see, right then, was a man who suddenly changed almost out of recognition — instead of pleading with her he commanded, instead of crumbling before her he stayed calm and resigned. Power alone couldn't have affected such a change — he had power before, yet he always bowed before her. Never, ever would he dare to set his own conditions for their union; in their love and their marriage she was always superior, she was the one settling rules. "Change, and then we can be together". He challenged that, now. What he said, in effect, was "Accept me, and yourself, and then we can be together". He seemed... Ready to lose her, if such would be her choice. Perhaps the nature of his power changed, and that gave him strength. Or perhaps somewhere in their past she challenged him one time too many, and the idea of losing her seized to be a catastrophe — it happened too often, she threatened to leave him too often, and it became a sad routine for him, and his resigned preparedness to be abandoned by her gave him strength to insist on his rights. He knew she would leave and that he still would somehow survive.

That didn't mean he doesn't love her — he did love her, she could see it in his eyes, hear in his soft, gentle voice. But their love wasn't a miracle anymore — it was just... love, great and painful and complicated, and it happened now, not promised a "happily ever after".

She was not his light, or hope, or chance of salvation; she was not a princess that stooped to kiss a poor beast, and made him forever pitifully grateful for her kindness. She was just a woman he loved, and he faced her on equal terms. The role in which she lived for years, ever since their first embrace in the woods, changed, and now she felt it very acutely.

She lost her power over him — her power to urge him towards goodness, her power to demand sacrifices for their love, her power to bend him to her will and to change him. This was more than she could take — more than she could stand. If she had no power to change him, if she seized to be the driving force for making him a good person, than who was she, now? The wife of the Dark One. Nothing less, yet nothing more.

She felt lost, she needed time to come to terms with this change, and she couldn't think or feel properly while he stood there, looking at her with his dark, infinitely kind yet unyielding eyes, so obviously calm, so sure of himself, so superior — with his power, with his wisdom, with his knowledge of human nature, with his certainty in their love and in their respective roles. She needed to get away from him, to breathe, to think calmly. She needed to find herself.

She ran out of the shop, not looking at him. But she knew he was looking at her, and she could feel his kind, indulgent smile. He is hundreds years old. He had seen temperamental children before. He knows she would calm down, and come back to him.

Damn his smugness, damn his wisdom, damn her love for him... Right now she wished she'd never see him again — the only thing she wanted was to get away, to become herself again, whoever that "self" was; if she were herself again, than she would be able to make decisions, to analyze her feelings, to see what is important to her.

She was alone on the street of this terribly familiar strange town, unable to breathe properly in the hot, stifled air of that twisted world, her eyes stinging in the reddish light of the sky, stinging from unshed tears.

She was still clutching the witch's baby in her arms. The little girl gave a small cry, rather like a kitten. She looked down at her — at the innocent pink face in a pink baby hat.

And then she froze, absorbing the frightening truth, which became momentarily shadowed by her complicated feelings towards her husband.

She is pregnant. She is going to have a baby.

His baby. Dark One's baby.

She would never be herself again — that is going to change forever. She is going to be a mother, a mother of his child. There is a thing growing in her that is changing her right now, making her a different person. This will never be about the two of them, ever again — there will always be a third person, affecting her decisions, robbing her of her free will. Someone who'd be a part of her, and affect the greatest change possible in her life, much more powerful than any curse or kisses of true love.

Her child. Their child. His child.

She will never be herself again.

There is no getting away from it — or from him. Not now. Not ever.