AN: Another slight Rumple/Belle one-shot. Found this on my computer after I forgot I wrote it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with Once Upon A Time.

She feels the moment the curse breaks, like a thread pulling taut and snapping under the strain of a towns' memories and centuries of magic. Her prison doesn't feel so cold and she reaches out a shaking hand against the slick stone, power and love and hope pushing until her tower crumbles to dust.

She remembers her life before the wretched curse that seeped between the bricks and suffocated her lungs with poisonous might. She awoke in a cell, wearing different clothes and a different face, but Belle was still a princess who sacrificed her freedom for her people.

She walks from that wretched place on shaky steps, back ramrod straight and head up proudly. Confusion swirls around her, people shouting as the sky rends and becomes something brighter, something truer. Grass sprouts beneath her feet and brushes her hands as she wanders knee-deep in it. The fake town shifts and splits before her, the land she knows to her very core returning to all its splendor.

Regina's power isn't as absolute as she believes. Something happened and made her worldview shift. All magic comes with a price.

Belle hears her now, the once-mayor shouting orders at people who have grown deaf to her tyranny. Children run wild, twirling in their parent's arms and shouting their delight to the clouds that drift idly by.

She finds herself smiling and breathing deeply and calmly, her skirts swishing at her ankles. All has been made right with her world. Her people are free. She is free.

Then her name drifts on the wind, uttered by her only flesh relative. Her father is off to the side, walking to her and gesturing with a wave. She remembers scourges and flame, bright light and blasphemy and false accusations. Disappointment in Maurice's eyes when she returns to whispers of her love for the demon who took her hostage.

Locked away from one dungeon to another, all because of her decision to be brave. A child should never suffer so at the hands of the one person they trust most.

Then another voice calls to her, beckoning with its lilt. Hushed and curious, he stands yards and lifetimes before her, a pained gleam in his eye as a tear falls. He whispers her name again to be sure, taking a faltering step, his limp still clinging. That alone remains when his powers leave him. His face is whole and hale and achingly hopeful.

She never believed he was a monster, not really. He put on a facade for the world to hide his broken heart and haunting past. There were times she had seen through it, had seen the man behind the mask. Those were times he talked freely about nothings and let her roam his library unaccompanied. They spoke little of the past and instead talked of a future without war and suffering.

He smiled without the jagged edges and sharp teeth.

She turns from her father. There was never a choice when it came to her heart.

"I thought you were dead," he half-whispers while his eyes roam her face, taking everything in.

Belle laughs then, quirking an eyebrow at him. "It will take more than stone prisons to break me."

Something flickers in his glance, something faint and painful, but it clears. He no longer looks haunted. He looks freed.

Belle links her hand with his, eyes bright and so alive. "Can we go home now?"

"Aye, we can."

And they lived.

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