A/N : Standard disclaimer, plus: I do not own the concepts or characters from Once Upon a Time and I only hope that I can do them justice.

Set following the events of 1/12 "Skin Deep"

{I wonder what Storybrooke Belle's name will turn out to be... and how many of us will scramble to 'fix' our fic.s the moment it is revealed! In my version/speculation I try to play with the Beauty & Beast elements (from French: La Belle et la Bête). Wikipedia has a cool entry on this folktale... beyond the Disney version. Enjoy!

Thanks for all the reviews, alerts and faves! I have added a little bit of detail to the first section as well as tweaked the formatting to indicate things like the passage of time... perhaps these should be separate chapters? I recently added chapter 2 & hope you enjoy it. I will update as time becomes available, though I suspect this tale will go AU eventually. We shall see. I am so glad that we fans can play in this sandbox together, building our own fairytale castles!

~Una~

CH 1. A storm wakes

Another perfect day in Storybrooke: the sun shone, birds sang in the trees, and a gentle breeze blew the brisk salt air. Daily life began to stir on Main Street.

Moe French left the hospital that morning after a session of physical therapy and a follow-up with Dr. Whale. His bruises were healing nicely and miraculously there had been no serious breaks, though his nose was no longer quite straight and a couple of his fingers were likely to remain kinked and would surely ache all winter. That was of little concern to him at the moment though. He had begun to remember things that didn't make sense.

Deep beneath the hospital she was shut in a padded room with no direct natural light, only a grimy window high in the wall opposite the only door provided any way to gauge whether it was truly day or night. She had begun hiding her pills under her tongue to be spat out after the nurse administered them weeks ago and the effect of the drugs was wearing off. She had no idea how long she had been in the room, all she could remember at first were emotional responses to hazy events: she felt the keen loss of a broken heart, though she could not recall what had happened or whom she had loved. As the drugs wore off she had often cried and hugged her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth repeating "please find me, please find me…". She felt she had somehow been locked away in the room as a result of some terrible mistake. It seemed as if she had been there forever. She wanted out.

Moe walked through the parking lot in a sort of waking dream. At first he had chalked this muzzy feeling up to the effects of the painkillers the doctor had prescribed. His run-in with Mr. Gold had left him profoundly shaken as well as bruised. Although Dr. Whale assured him that there had been no concussion, Moe was not so sure. There must have been some sort of head injury after the thrashing Gold had dealt him with the hammer-like silver handle of his cane. Otherwise, why would Moe seem to be remembering things that could not have happened? He seemed to be living two lives at once; and what is more Gold's repetition of the accusation that "she had your love… she's gone forever… it's your fault" still resounded in his memory as both nonsensical and yet somehow meaningful.

"Who was he talking about?" Moe asked himself for the umpteenth time since that night. He shook his head –gently, just in case – and made his way to his car. In the world of Storybrooke he remembered having had a wife who had died years ago and a daughter who had become ill soon after. But Moe French remembered or imagined having once been Sir Maurice, a Baron whose lands were overrun by ogres in a medieval fantasy land. He paused in the act of unlocking his old Honda Civic. "But why does that life sometimes seem more real than this one?" He wondered quietly to himself.

He took a deep breath, trying to gain some perspective. Looking across the top of the Civic, Moe took in the view of the town. He had to be at the courthouse later to confront Gold at last. He intended to press charges of assault and relished the thought of somebody finally sticking it to the little bastard. The image of Gold, yet not Gold stealing away his teenage daughter flashed through Moe's mind and he shuddered.

No, that was the dream life, wasn't it? There must have been some head injury! He knew that his daughter was safe, for her own good. Moe consoled himself with a real memory: a conversation he had had with Regina Mills soon after she became Mayor. Regina had convinced Moe that Elisabeth's disturbing visions and disturbed, self destructive behavior could be better treated at a state-run hospital than what he could do for her at home. Since his wife had died the girl had been getting worse and worse; she needed expert care. Thanks to Mayor Mills, his precious Bette was getting the care she needed and maybe if and when they found a cure for her mania she could come home again someday.

Sheriff Swan escorted the accused into the courtroom. Gold seemed as cool and collected as ever, though he met Moe French's eyes once, intently. The eyes seemed wrong to French: where he seemed to remember Mr. Gold as having cold, beastlike, wild dark eyes, now as he looked they were in fact golden brown, even warm though guarded, and very human. Something tugged at his consciousness faintly, as if the other man were pleading with him with that gaze. Then Gold looked down and away, seemingly defeated. Moe wondered: what is he trying to tell me?

An echo of the dream life whispered through Moe French's consciousness, "please Papa, I love him…" a young woman's voice, his daughter's pleading voice, seemed to call just beyond clear audibility. Moe bit his lip, lost in thought.

"Mister French?" The Judge addressed him from her bench.

"Your Honor?" Moe asked sheepishly.

"I asked you if it is your intent to go forward with these charges that Mr. Gold assaulted you." The Judge told him, a note of irritation creeping into her voice.

"Ma'am." Moe said. "No, Ma'am."

Silence. All eyes shift to big Moe French.

"Did I hear you correctly, Mr. French?" The Judge asked.

French steeled himself and though his gut was quaking, he glanced at Mr. Gold again. Gold nodded once, a very small and subtle movement, hardly the inclination of his head, but Moe hoped that it meant what he thought it did.

"It was a misunderstanding, your Honor." Moe said, looking at the Judge. "I don't want to go forward with this. I want to resolve it some other way."

The Judge sighed, shifting her gavel from one ebony brown hand to the other. She set the gavel down and folded her hands. She arched one eyebrow at Moe French. "You're quite sure?"

Moe said, "Yes, your Honor."

She shifted her gaze to Mr. Gold, standing stoically at the other table before her. "Mr. Gold, what say you? Do you wish to proceed with the charges of damage to your personal property by Mr. French?"

"Your Honor," Gold intoned quietly, "I agree with Mr. French. This has been the result of a terrible misunderstanding. I believe that we can resolve it without further… legal entanglements."

"I don't want to see either of you in here again, is that understood?" The Judge said pointedly. Both men nodded and the gavel banged once. "All charges dismissed, both cases are hereby declared closed. There being no further business before this court, we are adjourned."

Sheriff Swan gazed goggle-eyed from French to Gold and back in disbelief. "What the hell just happened?"

"It appears, Miss Swan," Mr. Gold murmured softly, "that I beat the rap."

"But…" Emma stammered, "I got both of you dead to rights. How?"

"You heard the Judge," Gold said through a smile just a touch away from a sneer, holding his manacled hands out for her to unshackle, "'All charges dismissed.'"

"I'll be damned." Emma muttered, handing him his cane.

"That remains to be seen." Mr. Gold chuckled, "Good day, Sheriff Swan."

Mr. Gold found Moe French waiting for him at the bottom of the courthouse steps. Gold paused two steps above French and leaned a hip casually against the railing, half sitting and half perching there. From this vantage point Gold was the taller of the two, a position he had chosen for the tactical, psychological effect it would surely have on Moe. He rested his cane in the crook of one arm and shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his black cashmere overcoat, where the precious chipped cup nestled, gently cradled in his hand.

"Well, that was unexpected." Gold announced, hearing an echo of his true self slipping into his voice in spite of his effort to control the madness bubbling just below the surface as he faced Belle's father, the man he held responsible for her death – unable to bear the guilt and pain of his own responsibility in that tragedy.

Moe French now found it difficult to meet the other man's eyes, fearing what might lurk there. "I suppose it all just got out of hand." Moe said with a shrug.

"Yes." Gold agreed with a little more emphasis, a touch more menace, than was entirely necessary.

Moe glanced at him, just sitting there like some deadly bird of prey, waiting to swoop down and strike. "The Mayor…" Moe stammered.

Mr. Gold waived a dismissive hand. "Yes, yes. I know all of that."

Moe took a deep breath and looked up at his adversary. "So what happens now?"

Mr. Gold closed his eyes, took a deep breath himself and got a grip on the dark madness that roiled within his heart and mind. He had to know, once and for all. Knowing that a suicide in the other world must surely foster a similar tale in this one he said, "Tell me what became of your daughter."

An hour or so later, Ruby witnessed a startling exchange as the two men continued their conversation at the diner. Waiting tables, she went mainly unnoticed as she hovered nearby, busying herself with refilling customers' coffees and tidying tabletops.

Mr. Gold leaned forward conspiratorially. "You mean to tell me she's been there this whole time?"

Moe was at a momentary loss for words. The entire talk had become surreal. "I know some of this doesn't make sense."

Mr. Gold sat back, trying not to glare at the florist, and struggled to keep the edge out of his voice when he said, "Oh, I wouldn't say that. Once you explained Regina's involvement it all made perfect sense."

Moe French was sheepish at this. "I was worried about my Bette, after her mum died she went from bad to worse." Moe folded his meaty hands around the cup Ruby had set in front of him half an hour ago. The coffee had long since gone cold. "Though, now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to take the mayor's advice."

"Perhaps not." Purred Rumplestiltskin through his civilized veneer, working hard to keep the urbane Mr. Gold at the fore; he longed to reach for the magic he had once commanded and blast this man into a puff of smoke, but the cost of doing so - were it even possible in this world - would not be worth the price. At least that's what he told his darker self.

Instead Gold watched Moe carefully. Something was different here. No, he realized, it was changing right before his eyes. He mimicked French and wrapped his long thin fingers around his own coffee mug, waiting.

Moe sighed, deciding that he had to tell somebody, and this made about as much sense as the rest of his day so far. "Have you ever felt like you were walking around in a dream? Only it was real, y'know?"

There it was. Mr. Gold closed his eyes, and when he opened them, just for an instant he was Rumplestiltskin: the mania and grief and dark power all seethed around him. Then he took a deep breath and it was all contained again within his slight frame. He straightened his silvery silk tie and considered telling Moe French that he had no idea what Moe was talking about. But that wouldn't get him anywhere, all the satisfaction that he might derive from inflicting that little pain paled in comparison to what he could stand to gain.

"No, Mr. French," Gold said quietly with detached deliberateness, "for me it was always a nightmare, and it is real: all of it is real. Do you understand me? All of it is real… or none of it is." He was pretty sure that the existentialism of this was lost on Moe French's limited imagination.

Moe forgot his fear and stared, flummoxed. Could this be true? "How is this possible?"

"I can tell you, but…" Gold paused, "First you must do something for me."

Moe hesitated, his blood ran cold. "That depends on what you want."

"It is no great thing," Gold said with an enigmatic smile that filled his companion with dread as the knowledge of who and what he was sharing a table with came trickling back into his awareness. "Only this, tell me: who do you think I am?"

"Is this a trick?" Moe French asked, sitting back automatically.

Mr. Gold placed his hands flat on the table. "Of a sort, yes. Let's call it a test."

Moe leaned in, glanced around and caught Ruby's eye. He spoke only after she moved out of earshot. "Mr. Gold…"

Gold looked at him as if to silently say and?

"This doesn't make sense to me," Moe confessed. "But it seems to me that you are somebody else too."

Barely above a whisper, Gold asked "Who?"

Moe pulled out a pen and began to write it on a table napkin and Gold snatched it away quick as you please. He gave Moe a warning glance and finally Moe French looked into the dark cup of coffee that seemed deeper than it should and cautiously whispered the name.

The lights in the diner flickered and went out. Daylight streamed in through the plate glass windows. Somebody opened the door and entered to the accompaniment of a jingle bell. The lights came back on. Somewhere a coffeemaker hissed and burbled.

In the returning memories of her other life he was the one true constant. He had been there when she first felt truly alive, when it seemed that her heart had first begun to beat. She remembered he had made her tremble, at first with fear at the strangeness of what he was: sorcerer, imp, precocious dark mage. But she remembered much more strongly the warmth that had crept into his wild dark eyes when he looked at her; his voice usually so mocking and snide turned milder, softer though with a wicked turn of phrase and his mouth, usually a thin austere line, could bow into a boyish grin that she had long sought to kiss. His pale skin, tinted with the patina of something eldritch and wild, had been dusted with the sheen of pure gold.

She woke up in a cold sweat more often than not since weaning herself off whatever she had been continuously dosed with. She did a quick scan of the room. There wasn't much to see. It was still locked. She was still alone. The fog of a dream clung to her, and in the dream she had not been alone: he had been there; holding her, kissing her, and sometimes there was more though she knew both in the here and now and in the other life that anything more was purely her fantasy. She felt a sob well up in her chest and caught her breath. What harm was there in giving vent to the feeling? She choked back the sob and whispered to herself "he did love me… he does, he must… somehow this will be alright."

Calming down by forcing herself to breathe deeply and slowly, the young woman once called Belle reminded herself of one more thing she had but recently remembered: they had made a contract. He had said "it's forever, dearie," and she had agreed. There had been no escape clause, she had readily agreed and when he had informed her father "the bargain is struck," that had been that: falling in love, being cast out, being incarcerated and going mad changed nothing about the contract. They had bound themselves together that day and the recovered memory of it strengthened her resolve that they would find each other.

She would wait. Now that she was in full possession of her wits again, Elisabeth French, who had once been Belle, would bide her time and await her opportunity. She would be free.

A short time later Moe French paid a visit to Emma Swan at the sheriff's office and asked her to accompany him to the hospital to sign some papers and quite probably to raise some hell.

"I think there might be some trouble." Moe explained. "I signed my daughter into the care of the state upon the Mayor's suggestion that it would be the best for her, but now I'm not so sure. Bette, that is Elisabeth, my daughter will have just turned twenty one, so by any legal standards she should be able to make her own decisions, right?"

"Well assuming that she is in her right mind, yes." Emma thought she could see a potential problem there. "Can I make a suggestion?"

"Please." Moe agreed.

"Let's see if we can get Archie Hopper on board with this, he's the local authority on mental health. If he says she is no danger to herself or others, I'll make sure to enforce that in as far as I am able." Emma told him. "Nobody is going to be held against their will on my watch."

"Thank you, Sheriff Swan, that's a great idea." Moe agreed.

"What if, you know… what if she wants to stay there though? If Archie says she still needs help, then what?" Emma hesitated to ask.

"I'll defer to his expertise," Moe replied adding, "I didn't know him back then, but since this thing with Gold, I've been visiting Dr. Hopper for anger management. He has helped me out a lot and I trust him… I just want to make sure my little girl is okay."

"Then let's go." Emma agreed, pulling on her coat.

They had to act fast: once Emma, Moe and Archie had strong-armed Dr. Whale into admitting that there was a private psychiatric ward on the hospital's lower level it was only a matter of minutes before Regina was sure to get a call at her office informing her that something was going on. Not wanting to allow her the chance to intervene, Mr. Gold headed straight to the Mayor's office when he was certain that Moe French and the rescue party had set out for the hospital. It had been easy for Gold to influence Moe into feeling guilty while relating to tale of her hospitalization. It had taken only the slightest push for Moe to believe that he had hatched the plan to free his daughter on his own.

So it was that when the sheriff's cruiser departed from Archie Hopper's office en route to the hospital, Mr. Gold strolled calmly into the Mayor's office on the pretext of discussing the status of Regina's recent real estate dealings with him. Claiming to have found some irregularities concerning real estate transfer involving public and private funds, Gold insisted on an impromptu closed-door meeting.

"I'm sure you wouldn't want any irregularities to pop up unexpectedly, would you, madam Mayor?" Mr. Gold asked her, staring Regina down while standing in the stark formal atrium in front of her office doors.

"Do we have to do this now?" She demanded.

There was a twinkle of mischief tinged with malice sparkling in his eyes when he simply said, "Please."

Try as they might, the French's reunion was neither an easy nor a happy one. In the here and now of Storybrooke they had a small ranch house in a suburbanite neighborhood. It was impossible to avoid each other, which was what Elisabeth wanted to do whereas Moe was so relieved that his little girl had been cured that he smothered her with attention.

She bristled at being called "Bette" or Betty, Beth, Bess or anything but Elisabeth. Moe treated her like a child or a delicate object to be handled with kid gloves. Being a protective father, Moe wanted her to stay at home and rest. She wanted none of it saying that she had enough rest to last several lifetimes.

Neither of them discussed their memories or dreams of another life with one another. Indeed, it seemed that the longer he lived with his daughter and the more they argued, the less Moe French remembered having ever been Sir Maurice. Moe chalked any lingering memories of the fairytale life to having taken too many blows to the head during his unfortunate encounter with Mr. Gold. That injury, combined with his stress over his business hanging by a thread, plus worrying about his only daughter's long illness, was enough to make Moe think he had imagined the entire fantasy life as a nobleman in a fairytale land.

Elisabeth French had all she could do to try and manage to carve a life out for herself in the world of Storybrooke and was beginning to believe that whatever life she remembered from another world was simply a dream or a memory best left in the past, though they stubbornly refused to fade away. She quickly realized that nobody else seemed to think that they had lived another life in a fairytale realm, and the thought of being put back inside for being crazy was the most horrifying thing she could imagine. She decided to tell no one about her memories or dreams of ever having been Belle. Meanwhile, Elisabeth French became fast friends with Ruby and Ashley and began to acclimate to the rhythm of life in Storybrooke.

After several sessions with Dr. Hopper, Elisabeth was relieved when Archie suggested that a regular routine would be good for her. She cajoled and bullied her father into allowing her to go to work in the family business, which consisted of landscaping as well as the florist shop.

"Bette," Moe bellowed one evening when he came into the back office to find her covered in dirt and peat, "when I agreed to let you help out around here I did not mean slinging a shovel! I thought you would stay in here and do the books!"

She rolled her blue eyes, brushing loose soil from the front of her jeans. "Pop, when did I ever stay in here and keep the books? Don't you remember how I used to run around here as a kid and play with all the plants? And I told you I prefer to be called Elisabeth now, please."

Moe scowled. He remembered that she had always loved roses, even as a small child. Something about the memory made him uncomfortable.

Elisabeth stepped around a box of office supplies and sat on the corner of his desk. "Haven't I been locked up long enough?" she asked.

"Damn it girl that is not fair!" Moe defended, "I thought it was the best thing for you."

"I know that," she said trying to stem the tide of another argument, "but now it's not. Look, I can see you're upset. Before one of us says something we'll both regret, I'm going for a walk."

"Fine, go." Moe grumped, making clear that it was anything but.

Several hours later as the sky began to color with the approach on sunset, Elisabeth was still walking and still irritated at her father. While stalking down Main Street, she almost ran down Mr. Gold as he was locking up his shop. He let her get a couple of paces past her before asking, "What's your hurry, dearie?"

Elisabeth stopped dead in her tracks, memories from that other life threatening to flood in. She recovered with sarcasm. "Dearie?" she asked. "Seriously?"

Gold smiled thinly, thinking how sad it was that she must have no idea of their former life though perhaps it was for the best. He quipped, "Got your attention, didn't it?"

She had to laugh at that. She thought she recognized his voice and found herself thinking sadly: it couldn't be him. Was it possible that even a being as powerful as Rumplestiltskin had succumbed to whatever power had transported everyone to this world? She refused to acknowledge the dream/memories she had concerning him. Perhaps it would be better this way, with him having no memory of her.

"You must have something on your mind to be striding around in such a single-minded state." He observed, looking her up and down though it was delicious torture to do so.

She shifted from one foot to the other, realizing how absurd the contrast between them was: she, flushed and a bit sweaty from the exertion of her hike across town to the woods and back, breathing hard, in a dirt-streaked butter-yellow polo shirt, jeans and sneakers, whereas he was the very picture of cool sophistication in a navy blue tailored suit and dove grey silk shirt and patterned deep red tie. Aside from wondering briefly who the hell wears clothes that fine to work at a pawn shop, Elisabeth blushed crimson when she thought of what a wild thing she must seem before him. She hoped that she didn't have branches stuck in her hair after the run she had taken through the woods to clear her head.

"Well," she said, exhaling deeply, "yes, I have rather a lot on my mind… as a matter of fact." She reflexively put her hands on her hips as if challenging whose business it was anyway.

Gold moved faster than she would have thought possible, snatching a leaf from her hair. When she jumped, he held it up to show her.

"Oh, damn." She sighed, flopping her hands down by her sides again.

Gold just grinned at her, "No need to take it out on my maples."

"Your…?" she cast a glance at the now darkened woods.

"Yes." Mr. Gold stated.

"All of that?" she waved a hand in the general direction of the vast woods.

He simply nodded, unable to quite keep from smirking as he recollected another rather large estate.

Elisabeth considered, (oh what the hell?), for only a moment before telling him, "You need a gardener, a caretaker."

Mr. Gold regarded her for a second in amazement. This was not how he had imagined their first encounter after engineering her release into the town of Storybrooke. He had spent some time concocting excuses to meet her and had ruled them all out in favor of watching over her from afar and trying to keep her safe that way. He was still utterly unable to forgive himself for the part he had played in ruining her other life. "Come again?" He asked.

Elisabeth laughed, a high clear sound that he thought would break his heart all over again, "You seriously need someone to attend to all of that! Its horribly overgrown you know."

"Is it?" He knew he was caught, he could not deny her anything, hypnotized as he was by her enchanting blue eyes. "I like the wilderness." He said, hoping that he sounded less helpless than he felt.

Elisabeth smiled and shook her head, taking a step closer to him. The streetlamps were coming on and soon they were standing in a pool of amber light. "There is wilderness and then there is wildness." She told him sagely.

"What's the difference?" he asked, remembering too late how this forthrightness in her had snared him before.

She looked at him in good natured disbelief and explained, "When a place goes to wilderness it's unhealthy, it chokes itself to death." Meeting his gaze she added, "Wildness is the true nature of the thing; you can set it free to be what it should be in a healthy state without you know... breaking its spirit."

"I see." He agreed quietly, paused for a heartbeat and asked, "When can you start?"

Again she laughed, flashing that marvelous smile. "I wasn't applying for a job!"

"That's too bad, because now I'm utterly convinced that I need you." He told her.

Elisabeth looked at him dubiously. Was this happening? She hoped history would not entirely repeat itself.

"Miss French," Gold said casually leaning on his silver-handled ebony cane, "I'm afraid I have a reputation for getting what I want."

She swallowed hard and felt her heart skip a beat, but again diverted her distress into sarcasm. "Really," she said, cocking her head to one side, "I hadn't heard."

"Oh, yes." He assured her, distracted watching her auburn curls tumble over her shoulder as she tossed her head. This was definitely his Belle.

She smiled at him, calling his bluff though she knew it wasn't. "Tomorrow then?"

"Fine." He agreed, and it was. "Will you meet me at my house in the morning and we can work out the details."

"At your house?" She asked apprehensively, sifting through dream memories rapidly to remember if this had happened before; she felt suddenly that it had and it had not ended well.

He noted her hesitation, the sudden wariness and the shift in her body language that told him she was poised to flee. Wildness indeed, he thought. "Don't misunderstand me, it's nothing improper. I would like to get your opinion on the garden there before I set you loose in my woods."

Elisabeth considered that, one thought stumbling over the other. "Fine. Yes. Okay. Eight o'clock?"

He nodded, quite satisfied.

She extended a hand to shake on it, then thought better of it considering the grime. Mr. Gold grasped her hand anyway.

"Never let it be said that I'm afraid to get my hands dirty." He told her, gripping her hand firmly but carefully, allowing himself the merest extra moment of contact. It was torture enough, knowing that he must be as a stranger to her.

Despite sensing the note of menace in his voice, she somehow knew it was not meant as a threat, rather she took it as some assurance that he would let no harm come to her. "I'm…" she began to say.

"I know who you are, Miss French." He told her warmly as he released her hand.

"Oh?" she said drawing back her hand slowly, thinking 'I know who you are too, but do you?'Elisabeth reminded herself that she seemed to be the only person who had thoughts or secret memories of another life, and that the madhouse was still waiting for her if she let on. "Then I guess we have a deal… Mr. Gold."

"Let's call it an understanding." He suggested.

Elisabeth smiled shyly, glancing down the road toward her father's shop. "As you say… 'til tomorrow then?"

Mr. Gold agreed, a wistful smile flitting across his face. "Good night…" he said as she walked away with a new spring in her step, adding in a whisper, "…my Belle."

The following morning found Elisabeth French standing on the porch of the biggest house in Storybrooke, Mr. Gold's Victorian mansion. She took pains to kick her overstuffed back pack out of view when he answered the door. It was no good. As the door opened and the smell of gourmet coffee wafted over her, Mr. Gold favored Elisabeth with a quizzical look.

She scowled and advised him, "Don't ask."

He raised both open hands in a gesture of surrender, and guided her toward the kitchen. He had clearly gone to some effort and there was coffee along with a basket of assorted muffins set out on the table in a sunny, welcoming breakfast nook. He had resisted the urge to make tea, feeling that the irony of it might be simply more than he himself was able to withstand.

After sitting across from each other dining in silence for a while, Mr. Gold's curiosity got the better of him and he asked what had happened.

"Well, if I'm going to be working for you I assume that means I'll be getting paid?" Elisabeth asked archly.

"Most likely yes." He chuckled.

She nodded decisively. "In which case I'm going to get my own place, but in the meantime I'll take a room at Granny's B & B."

"That doesn't answer the question." Gold pointed out, stirring his coffee slowly with a silver teaspoon.

"There are two possibilities: either I've run off in a snit to get my own way, or my father threw me out because he objected to my coming to work for you. Which version is more true depends on who you ask." She replied sourly, and took a sip from her mug of coffee while her gazing over the rim at him. "Which would you rather hear?"

"Yours of course." Mr. Gold sat in quiet thought for a moment.

Elisabeth sighed. "I can't let other people make my choices for me, no matter how well-intentioned they may be."

"He really threw you out?" Gold asked, keeping a tight rein on his anger; this was not happening again, was it? "Because of our arrangement?"

"Not in so many words," She told him, avoiding his gaze. "I saved him the trouble by leaving. He really does not approve, though whether he objects because he doesn't like you, because he's not getting anything out of it, or because he can't stand not having control over his 'little girl' is anybody's guess."

"I imagine it's some combination of all three." Mr. Gold observed.

"Yes, well in the meantime I have to find somewhere else to stay."

"May I offer a solution?" He heard himself asking before he had really considered the consequences.

Elisabeth shrugged. "If you have one."

He studied her face for a moment, weighing exactly what to say. The last thing he wanted to do was to cause her to bolt, in all likelihood straight into Regina's clutches again. That was how they had all got into this mess in the first place.

"Stay here." He said softly.

She stared dumbstruck. Something in the depth of her fractured memory made this seem familiar. Just before she would have panicked, Gold drew her attention to a building halfway visible past the corner of the house. Across the back courtyard from the kitchen was what appeared to be a small barn or very large garage.

"There's an apartment above the carriage house." He told her, berating himself mentally for being too goddamn cheerful about it. "You're welcome to use that if you wish."

Elisabeth took a bite out of her blueberry muffin and considered the offer. When she was done eating she asked, "What do you get out of this?"

Gold smiled and looked away, thinking how perceptive she was. "You sound like Sheriff Swan. Perhaps I prefer to keep you close at hand?"

Elisabeth snorted, "For what, midnight gardening emergencies?"

"One can never be too sure around here." He shrugged. "I hesitate to say 'call it a favor,' but believe it or not that's exactly what I'm proposing."

"Why?" she asked, peering at him over the rim of her coffee mug again.

He congratulated himself on having made the right choice for their first meal together, but wondered idly what imbibing so much medium roast Kona was likely to do to her nerves.

"I have my reasons, just as you have your own reasons for wanting to get out from under your father's roof. It will be your own place, way over there…" he waved toward the carriage house about a hundred feet away, "I swear I will not trespass on your territory unless invited. Deal?"

"I want to see it first." She said firmly, setting the empty mug down.

Mr. Gold genuinely smiled at that; she was indeed learning. However she would have little need of such wariness here. He intended to protect her this time as he had failed to do before.

"I would expect no less." He agreed.

The carriage house was painted in the same bright warm color scheme as the main house. It was used for storage on the lower level, and the apartment above it had a covered stairway leading up to a small porch at the back. Inside the studio apartment there was little in the way of luxury, though Elisabeth concluded that once she had opened the windows and aired the place out she could be comfortable there. The backpack was relocated from the front porch to the studio apartment and the tour of the gardens began, along with some hard core negotiating over the terms of employment. Gold quickly realized that here was a part of Belle's personality that had somehow escaped his notice before. Perhaps it was just that, as she had told him then, the opportunities for women to truly shine had been sorely limited in the fairytale realm.

"Where shall I start?" She asked after spending several hours walking through the gardens near the house and the overgrown woodland adjacent to them. They had yet to address the issue of the greater woods which surrounded the town everywhere it did not meet the sea.

"Start wherever you like," Mr. Gold told her, "I leave it to your discretion. I only ask that you keep me informed as to where you will be working in case I need to contact you."

In response to her quizzical look he told her, "Cellular technology - it would seem- is still inadequate to reach some parts of the deep woods, I'd hate to have to send out a search party for you and not know where to start looking."

"You make it sound like such a hazardous mission." Elisabeth said with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "Perhaps I should have negotiated for combat pay?"

"Heavens, I hope it won't come to that." Mr. Gold countered, hoping that she thought his concern was feigned.

"For today Mr. Gold, have no fear." She smiled, reaching out to touch his arm gently. "I think I will start here, near the house. I'll want to thoroughly map and list what you have growing where, then if any of it needs relocating to a better spot I'll know exactly what we're dealing with."

He glanced down at her hand on his sleeve. How easy that had been for her, he thought, to break the barrier of his personal space. He stepped back slowly and as he was turning to go into his house told her that would be fine, that he had some business to attend to, he would be back that evening… a host of things that needed doing that all rang false in his own ears even as he said them. All he really wanted to do that day was to watch her as she worked, wondering if she sang to herself while working as she had in that other life.

CH. 1.5 ;-)

It had been many weeks since they had fallen into the habit of having dinner together in his formal dining room a couple of times a week. It had started off as an evening meeting to go over her plans for redesigning a flower garden and had become a ritual that anchored their building friendship. She would finish work at 5 and retreat to her apartment above the carriage house to get cleaned up and changed, more often than not into something far more feminine than the t-shirts and jeans she wore for 'playing in the dirt' as his gardener. They would sit down to dinner at 6, in the unlikely event that he burnt something they would order delivery. His choice of wine was always impeccable in any case.

Halfway through dinner she set her wineglass down carefully. "Henry tells me a 'final battle' is coming."

Gold nodded, never taking his eyes off her, gauging her reactions to his words, "He is a very perceptive young man."

"That may be." Elisabeth agreed, as evasive as he.

He had begun to see glimmers of the Belle he had known underlying this version of her and wondered if her knowledge of the other realm was coming back, as Henry once implied that Graham's had just before his death. On this evening Mr. Gold decided to push her a little and asked, "What else does young master Mills have to say?"

"You know he believes that everybody in town is really a fairytale character?" She asked.

"I've heard." Gold agreed, "How does he think we all came to be here then?"

Elisabeth wondered if he was testing her sanity. She saw no real harm in repeating the tale Henry had told more than one person around town, "He said there was a world-ending curse created to take away all the happy endings. He says Regina is an evil queen and that she cast the spell."

Gold's meal sat untouched before him. So this was how the truth would come out? So be it. He replied with a sigh, "That sounds like her."

Lightning flashed then in the autumn sky and hail pelted against the windows as the wind picked up. The power still buried deep in his bones stirred, his old injury zinging with tension at the resonance of magic. He fought to keep the old madness at bay, hoping his eyes and skin would not change color: what was coming was no ordinary storm. He must let his true nature show, shedding the façade of Mr. Gold, otherwise how could he hope to protect her?

"It's too late, isn't it?" asked the girl who had been Belle, witnessing the shift in his attitude.

"What?" He asked, perplexed, half rising from his seat. He felt the attack was imminent.

"We should have had this conversation weeks ago." She seemed to scream above the whirlwind thrashing outside.

Bolts of pure energy ripped the air at that moment, striking straight for the house. The report was deafening, windows exploded outward and fires roared to life amid the smell of ozone and brimstone in a half a dozen places on the ground floor.

Ears ringing and half blind, she crawled under the table hoping this one was half as sturdy as the one in the old estate had been. He reached for half forgotten knowledge and drew upon the innate power of all the land that belonged to him, hoping to ground the next wave of lightning bolts by drawing them to earth rather than his home. He was aware all the while that the Queen really meant to destroy them tonight for all time.

"Belle!" He yelled above the cacophony as lightning bolts struck all around the house and thunder boomed instantly, reaching under the table he dragged her up and made for the nearest door.

In the freezing rain they watched the big house burning. Lightning had struck the cupola and the top of the highest tower of the Queen Anne and the lightning rods there had done little to ground the electric charges. He was seething in a cold rage: he saw the Regina's hand in this and was furious not that his home was going up in flames, but because this fire might have injured Elisabeth French, his beloved Belle.

"This is her doing, I know it." He growled through clenched teeth, puzzled at how even the Queen could muster so much power in an allegedly magic-free world.

Elisabeth stood quietly by his side. She stared in disbelief at the inferno. Fire trucks would surely be unable to reach them due to flash flooding and washed out roads all over the area, to say little of the bombed-out looking area immediately around Mr. Gold's home where the bulk of the lightning had struck, blowing huge pock marks in lawn and roadway alike.

"But why? Why now?" She asked, barely recognizing her own voice in the hollow sound. She absolutely believed what Gold had said, but she shook with fear and her ears were still ringing.

His hands grasped her shoulders like talons. He forced her to meet his eyes directly, something he had carefully avoided since the first days of their new association. He had avoided touching her as well, until now.

The rain poured down, drenching them to the bone though they stood in the sparse shelter beneath the carriage house's second story porch. Lightning split the night air, casting crazed shadows; they seemed to exist between the worlds.

"Do you trust me?" Gold asked, shouting above the rolling thunder.

She shivered, tears welling in her eyes. "Yes."

Thunder cracked again and he held her close.

"Yes, I trust you." She sobbed, embracing him.

He cupped her chin in his hand and looked down into her wide blue eyes, and before he could talk himself out of it he kissed her full on the mouth with all the passion that he had tried to keep at bay for two lifetimes. To his amazement she leaned into his body, deepening the kiss and meeting his passion with the force of her own.

With a shuddering rumble the Victorian house collapsed in upon itself. A wave of heat and ashes blew across the courtyard to where they stood in each others arms.

"This is terrible." She muttered.

He grinned down at her madly. "I dunno, I thought that was pretty good."

She rolled her eyes at him. "You are utterly mad, you know?"

"That makes two of us, dearie." He grinned conspiratorially.

What other choice did she have? She grinned back at him.

The storm began to break up leaving in its wake a simple rain shower. The heavy clouds gradually thinned and the moon even peeked through occasionally.

"Did we..?" she asked, indicating the diminishing storm, "...did you do that?"

He merely shrugged, "My specialty has always been contracts and curses, my dear, not breaking them, and certainly not turning them into blessings… do you remember?" He asked her cautiously.

"Yes." She told him, "I have been remembering things for months; I don't think I ever truly forgot anything." She paused to consider for a moment before asking, "Why might that be?"

Gold looked at her quizzically in the dying firelight. He held her close and told her what he had lacked the courage to say so long ago: "I love you, much more than power or wealth…"

"That's new." She smiled teasingly.

Smiling warmly he continued, "I soon learned that everything I had or would ever have was meaningless without you, I lost my mind the day the Queen convinced me that you had jumped to your death from your father's tower. I created this curse to punish the world for destroying you." He told her, "When the Queen got her hands on it, I reveled in the thought that she was power-hungry and foolish enough to use it… because to trigger it she must kill that which she loved most. Just as I had destroyed you because of her…"

Elisabeth swallowed the shock and revulsion that warred with the heart-aching desire to comfort him. She wiped a stray tear from her cheek. "You created the world-ending curse?"

He looked sadly into her eyes. Knowing that he risked all, he answered "Yes, though all curses can be broken; I cannot break it." He hung his head in shame, waiting for her to reject him as he had once turned her away.

Elisabeth took his face in both her hands and forced him to meet her gaze. "Listen to me," she said firmly, looking deeply into his golden eyes, "it is horrendous, that is true… but it is also a measure of the love you must have felt, and the loss, that you created such a devastating thing. You say you cannot undo it? Very well, then we must do everything in our power to help those who can break the curse."

Gold stared at her in stunned disbelief; at a loss for words he could only nod his assent.

She asked in a stern yet mystified voice, "So, how is it that this all-encompassing curse has not affected me the same way it affects everybody else?"

He found it impossible to look away from her eyes and answered. "Because you are a part of me, just as I am a part of you... my exemption from the curse must have carried to you. Besides, it was built to avenge you, how should it affect you?"

"Does magic really work that way?" She asked, studying his face in the flickering light. The reflected embers cast shadows that seemed to transform him from Rumplestiltskin of the Dark Castle to Mr. Gold of Storybrooke and back again. Belle French shivered from more than just the chill in the rain. Watching him with a fascination that bordered on arousal, she wondering which version of him was the more real.

He looked past her then, staring into the fiery wreckage of his home as if scrying for the answer there and thought so long and silently about that that only her shivering returned him to the moment. "I don't know if I can really say how it works any more. It isn't supposed to work in this world at all, though after this display," he snarled nodding toward the burning wreckage, "I think we can assume that's not entirely true. And knowing you, finding you again, has changed so much of what I thought I knew about the nature of things, like magic and curses..."

"And love?"she added hopefully.

He smiled down at her, "Yes my dear, 'and love'. I know this though; I will not make you stand out here and shiver any longer."

The inferno had spared the carriage house, so Elisabeth took his hand and led him up the stairs to what had become her home. True to his word, Gold had never stepped foot in the apartment since the day he had given her the keys. When he hesitated at the threshold, she tugged him across and shut the door behind him, bolting the lock behind her.

Under electric light, she realized what a miserable looking pair they were. Her buttercup yellow chiffon dress was ruined, char marks and burn holes pocked the skirt and there were smears of ash all across the bodice. She kicked her muddy shoes off and flexed her toes to get the blood flowing back to them. As for Mr. Gold, he seemed dapper even while appearing drowned; his once-white shirt of fine Egyptian cotton clung to him like a second skin, as did the dark linen trousers he wore. His Italian loafers were a disaster of singed and mud-spattered leather. Startled, she realized that far from being merely thin, he had a runner's physique: all lean muscle and bone. If he had been taller, she thought, he would have been lanky, gangly perhaps, but his average stature concealed the potential for incredible speed and power, even despite his partial lameness. She found herself studying him, his arms and legs… she took his hand and drew him closer. To her surprise he complacently followed her lead. When she reached trembling hands to undo the buttons on his shirt, he balked only slightly, startled by her action.

"Take this off," she murmured, finding her voice thickened by a rising desire, "everything else is burned up, if we dry out what you have on at least you can wear that tomorrow."

"How brilliant you are my dear." He chuckled. Reaching out to push the sodden mass of her hair back from her shoulders, Gold leaned forward and began kissing her neck and was rewarded by her gasp. She tensed when he reached to unzip the back of her ruined dress, but quivered with pleasure when he pulled the straps off her shoulders, following his cool fingertips with warm kisses.

Her skin tasted of salty sweat and smoky soot, and something more subtle, smoothly sweet. His head swam with possibilities, the instinct for self preservation strangely in accord with his reckless, manic desire. What quietness of spirit he had managed to achieve in this life as Mr. Gold seemed to be shattered the moment he tasted her skin and smelled her hair. Even through the smell of fire it was intoxicating. "Elisabeth?" he whispered.

She grasped his wrists to stop him caressing her. And looked at him earnestly, registering the confusion in his face. "That's not really my name, is it?"

"It is here in Storybrooke." He told her, swallowing hard.

"No." She corrected him, "No more than you are really Mr. Gold, my dear Rumplestiltskin." She released his wrists and for a moment he stood frozen in place.

His eyes widened. "Belle…" he asked almost voicelessly.

"Yes." She whispered; kissing him deeply, she parted his lips with her tongue and ran her hands up his bare chest, sliding the open shirt off his shoulders. It fell unheeded to the floor.