In this part, a queen comes calling and Belle unleashes her anger. Not Regina-friendly: you have been warned.

As He Lies Sleeping

Part Two: Regina

Belle looks up when she hears the bell. It's a day since Henry's visit and he asked if he could come back. She didn't think to see him again so soon, but she's pleased he's come to visit again.

'Two visits in two days,' she observes to Rumple. 'I'll be right back,' she tells him, stroking his hand.

She stands and goes out, a smile on her face for Henry, but it isn't Henry standing in the front of the shop: it's Regina. Belle's smile fades.

She backs away, her heart starting to race. She's been trying not to think about the other woman's hand ripping her heart out of her chest, but seeing her here brings it all back. She wants to be sick and she instinctively puts a protective hand on her chest.

'Get out,' she demands, wishing Rumple were awake and could hold her.

Regina only looks at her, making no move to exit the shop.

'Henry told me he visited with you yesterday,' she says now.

Belle doesn't speak. Is Regina really going to avoid what happened between them the last time she was here?

'I wanted to thank you for cheering him up,' Regina continues. 'He's been so down and I haven't been much help trying to keep his spirits up. Emma's disappearance has been—'

'Are you really going to just skip over what you did to me as if it means nothing?' Belle asks, cutting across the other woman, furious now.

Regina sighs, seemingly peeved that Belle has mentioned it, and that infuriates Belle more. It's as if the queen doesn't want to have to face what she did. She wonders if Regina would have apologised to her before if she hadn't brought up what she did to her then.

'I'm sorry about that,' Regina says now.

Belle shakes her head: sorry isn't enough this time.

'No, you see, you've said that before. Apologies mean nothing when go back on them at the first opportunity. I thought you'd changed: I thought you were past treating me as a pawn, but I see now that I was wrong. I trusted you once, a long time ago, but I shouldn't have, and I shouldn't have trusted you this time either: I won't make that mistake again. I want you to leave, Regina.'

'It wasn't personal,' the queen says, as if that makes it any better.

Belle glares at her. 'I really don't care: please leave.'

'He was working with Zelena: he was going to tell her to kill Robin,' Regina tries to explain.' Taking your heart was the only way I knew that might stop him.'

'You're not making any sense: Zelena's dead.' Belle won't listen to some nonsense excuse: she knows Regina's just trying to make what she did ok in her own mind.

'No,' Regina insists. 'She opened the time portal and brought Emma back. She killed Marian and took her place. Rumple was working with her.'

'Even if it were true that Zelena was alive,' Belle says impatiently, 'she killed his son and enslaved him for nearly a year. She did terrible things to him: why on earth would he be willing to work with her?' There's no way Belle will ever believe that. Rumple would only do that if he didn't have a choice, and that means he wasn't a willing participant in Zelena's scheme, whatever that was.

'I can't explain that, but he was,' Regina insists again. 'He was going to tell her to kill Robin unless I helped him.' And she looks helplessly at Belle now, obviously wanting her to understand and accept her point of view.

Belle doesn't believe that Rumple wanted Robin dead, or that he was going to tell Zelena to kill him, and she's just so mad that Regina is trying to excuse what she did: there's no excuse for hurting her like that, for violating her like that.

'So you took my heart to use as leverage so he wouldn't do that?' she asks. And that's really not fair. Why is her life worth less than Robin's: because she's important to Rumple? It's as if she's not a person at all to Regina.

'Exactly.' Regina sounds a little relieved, as if she's glad Belle understands.

Belle stares at her. She can't believe this. She's so angry, and Regina needs to hear it.

'No one knows better than I what kinds of horrible things Rumple has done in the last few months,' she begins, 'but he was under the influence of a terrible, sentient Darkness, a Darkness that was consuming him. That may not excuse him entirely, but it does excuse a lot. I see now that a lot of what he did wasn't really him, or wasn't only him. You weren't under the influence of a Darkness with a mind of its own, Regina: you did what you did all on your own, and, this time, I don't know if I have it in me to forgive you.

'Taking my heart so you could keep Robin safe doesn't excuse you. My life is not worth less than his. I'm not a pawn to be used in your feud with Rumple.'

The queen looks uncomfortable at being told off, but Belle isn't done yet. The worst thing Regina did wasn't steal her heart: it was what she did with it, what she made her do.

'You know, I would have helped you,' she says now, really trying not to cry at how angry and betrayed she feels: 'I even asked how I could help. I would happily have gone and talked to him for you, and I think I could have gotten him to listen. You didn't have to rip my heart out and make me say those cruel things to Rumple. But the worst thing you did — worse even than taking my heart in the first place — was making me forget what he told me.' And now it's really difficult not to cry: she has to blink back her tears. 'I could have helped him: I could have found another way to save him instead of him getting the Author to write new stories. By making me forget, you took away my chance to try to save him. If I could have helped him, maybe things would have gone differently: maybe he'd be standing here with me, and maybe Emma wouldn't have become the Dark One.' She sniffles as she thinks of how awful this whole situation is. 'Every action has consequences, Regina, even yours: maybe you should think about that in future.

'Maybe some day I'll be able to forgive you or at least move past what you did to me, but not today. I don't want you here, Regina: please leave.'

Regina looks back at her for a moment, but then she turns and walks out of the shop, Belle's anger and emotion obviously not something she wants to deal with. Or perhaps, seeing Belle so upset has made her feel ashamed and guilty, but Belle is not sure about that, though guilt and shame would tell her that Regina knows what she did was wrong.

Belle releases a shaky breath and leans back against the wall for a moment. Regina's done so many awful things to her. She thought that her apology was the end of all of that, but the moment it suited her, she took advantage of her again. She supposes she shouldn't be surprised, given what she means to Rumple, but she's more than Rumple's True Love: she's more than a pawn to be used against him. Somehow she needs to make people see that.

Regina's made her see that she trusts too easily. She'll have to stop doing that, otherwise she's just going to get tricked and taken advantage of again. She'll be more wary about helping people from now on.

She doesn't doubt that Regina is trying to be better, just obviously not when it suits her better to be the Evil Queen again: when that gets her what she wants quicker than being nice. But Belle would have helped her willingly if she'd just asked. She didn't have to be cruel. Maybe it's just that she's working to be better with everyone but Belle. That's certainly how it seems right now, and Belle isn't sure whether she's more angry or more sad about that.

Well, there's nothing more to be done about it. She has more pressing concerns to take care of. Trying to put the encounter out of her mind, she goes back into the back room and sits down next to Rumple.

'Sorry about that, my love,' she tells him, and picks up the book she's been reading to him. 'Now, where were we? Oh, yes: chapter three.'

Next time, a friend comes needing Belle's research skills, and he tells her something she didn't know that vindicates her belief about Rumple.