It waited.

While Belle grieved and left Storybrooke, finding her own way in this strange, magicless world, it watched and grieved for her.

And waited.

It wasn't a matter of fate – not exactly – that brought Belle into the orbit of one Nicholas Rush. It wasn't even a matter of manipulation. Things that are connected draw each other, that's all. Nicholas Rush, if the matter had been explained to him – and if he had believed what he was told – would have been able to explain it in terms of quantum mechanics and the existence of particles in sync with each other across space and different dimensions.

A man known by many names, among them Mr. Gold, would have explained it in terms of sympathetic magic and reflections.

But, Mr. Gold was dead and his widow saw no reason to tell Dr. Rush any more than he needed to know about the man she had loved or why she sometimes could not bear to look at Dr. Rush and, sometimes, could not bear to look away.

Rush, who could be a greater fool at times than any man had a right to be, recognized the peculiarities of grief but supposed what he sometimes saw in Belle's face – or Mrs. Gold, as he thought of her on those rare occasions when he thought of her at all – was only the stray echo of memory, things brought out by a chance word or phrase. He supposed she had moments like that with everyone and thought no more about it.

He did, however, show her a certain consideration.

Not much, but a little.

He didn't suppose she noticed. Mrs. Gold was only a civilian (and not a very important one) but she had somehow become the ship's morale officer. She was the one who held Chloe when she grieved for her father. She was the one who appreciated Eli's jokes and odd references.

She had other peculiarities. It was not just that she knew a wealth of stories, for example, it was the way she told them. Someone had even asked her once if she'd been a professional storyteller (apparently, there still were such things in the world). Belle had laughed. "No," she said. "But, there were always a few at my father's – back home, where I grew up."

Odd. He wondered what word she'd been about to use and what sort of place it was where there were always a few storytellers.

Probably a pub, he'd decided, and put the matter aside.

He'd also heard one or two comments about her ability with the wounded, something Destiny managed to supply them with often enough. He didn't quite understand what seemed odd, just that Mrs. Gold was competent enough when emergencies came up and that there was something about this that surprised people, not that she had any professional medical training – she'd even had to ask basic questions about first aid kits.

The thing that listened and waited held the answer.

Belle had grown up in a kingdom at war. She had learned to suture wounds and comfort the dying without anything like TJ's medical tools. She knew how to treat injuries when there were no pain relievers or blood transfusions.

But, she could be startled by something as simple as a trained nurse expecting the civilians to move aside in a crisis.

But, again, Rush didn't give that matter much thought.

He did play chess a few times against Mrs. Gold and learned that he could never hope for more than a draw against her (and, even then, only when he was lucky and she was more distracted than usual).

Her husband, she admitted, had been a true master of the game, always twelve moves ahead of anyone he was playing with. She had played him often and never won.

Rush supposed the man had been good but didn't doubt she was exaggerating.

She was sentimental, after all, and the mind plays tricks on people who let it.

Still, it was enough for something like friendship to exist between them, enough that he asked her when they needed Dr. Amanda Perry.

Mrs. Gold had seemed bemused by the request. "There are other people who want to see Earth more than I do," she said.

"I don't think they'll want to take Dr. Perry's place," Rush said. "She's quadriplegic . I know it's asking a lot. You won't have another chance after this to go back, not for months, maybe longer, not while others are waiting. You won't be able to do many of the things you'd hoped –"

Mrs. Gold had stopped him. "I don't have anything to do back there. Except catch up on my reading. I don't suppose that will be a problem."

Records (or memories) stirred in the thing that waited. It put them together with the way Belle paled and her lips tightened.

She knew what it was to be confined and helpless.

She knew what it was to be treated like an inanimate object while pills were forced down her or drugs were injected, to be stripped and scrubbed in cold water by impersonal hands because it was written down in a file as part of her treatment and she was not to be trusted to bathe herself.

Dr. Amanda Perry was paralyzed but valued – even treasured – for her brilliance. She had interviewed and chosen the people who cared for her physical needs. She gave them orders and they obeyed. If they did not meet expectations, she let them go. Whatever the hardships of her life – and they were many – she ruled over her personal environment like a queen over her personal kingdom.

For Belle, who would be nothing more than an unwelcome tenant in the house they were required to care for – according to rules she had no say over – it would be the worst time of her life twisted into an even more terrible nightmare.

She did not recognize that, herself. She did not immediately see that this might be so much worse for her than for anyone else Dr. Rush could have asked. She only recognized the ship's need and her own deep rooted instinct to face her fears head on.

Rush saw none of that. He thanked her quickly and hurried off to make arrangements.

The one who waited began to stir.

So, Amanda Perry came to the ship and she reveled in the freedom Belle's body gave her.

She reveled, too, in the freedom she had to reach out to Nicholas Rush, a friend, and something more than a friend.

The one who waited became restless. Something more than records or memories began to wake up in it, something like a feeling. It recognized a threat.

There came a night. Rush and Amanda were alone. There had been wine – horribly bad wine made from the odds and ends of the ship's hydroponics but still much sought after on Destiny, and Rush getting ahold of a bottle and sharing it with Amanda had taken careful calculation.

Still, the one who waited, despite a murderous heat that began to grow in it (much more than memories, the waiting was almost over as it began to think, to plan), recognized Rush might be so focused on one woman that he had forgotten the other.

It stirred to life, reaching out.

Amanda Perry had not thought about the gold chain she wore or the gold ring with its brilliant, precious stone, things that belonged to the woman whose body she was borrowing (Rush, noticing the way it glittered just then, felt a touch of curiosity. Was it a star sapphire? Or a blue opal? Surely, it must be an artificial stone, he thought. A real one that large would belong in a museum . . . .). Amanda felt the slight surge of warmth of the stone against her bare skin, a momentary distraction as she leaned in and kissed Rush.

The lights flickered. The steady rhythm of the engines faltered.

Amanda's expression changed.

No, not Amanda, Rush realized. Mrs. Gold. Belle. A disruption in the drive, with the end result that the woman in his bed was looking at him in horror.

"What are you doing?" Belle asked, instinctively pulling the sheets around her.

The one who waited watched and judged.

Cold water, it remembered. It had been a treatment – or a punishment – in the prison where Belle had been held. Patients could be stripped, then restrained while being drenched with a fire hose, then left to shiver and freeze while the 'cure' did its work.

And, now and then, one of the men administering it would take other liberties as well.

The patients' screams, after all, were to be expected.

Those men had died, the watcher remembered. They had suffered terribly and, with what was left of their tongues and wits, begged for death long before it had been granted.

But, Belle would not allow that here.

Not unless the judgment could be shown to be just.

Rush pulled back in dismay.

At what? The other one wanted to know. At seeing one woman replaced with another – another who was horrified at what he had done –or at recognizing what he was doing?

Did he realize what he was doing – to her?

She had faced her nightmare, to be imprisoned and helpless without any power over her own body or what others did to it.

And she had woken from that to an even worse nightmare, of a man she had thought of as a friend – perhaps, the watcher thought, as even more than a friend – using her more ruthlessly than any of her jailers had ever quite dared, because none of them had ever made her trust them.

No, the watcher decided, he didn't see that. There was only a flicker of dry amusement in his eyes as she tried to hide herself from his eyes – he had already seen all there was to see.

Then, the watcher's grasp faltered. The thrum of the engines went back to normal. Another woman looked back at Dr. Rush.

"What – what happened?" Amanda said. She frowned, upset. "She was here, wasn't she? She knows. If she tells – "

But, Rush only looked thoughtful. "No," he said. "It doesn't matter. You're necessary to keep the ship going. She's just a civilian. She signed away her rights when she agreed to work on the Stargate Project – and she signed them away again when she agreed to stand in for you.

"Besides, you don't think any of your staff are going to help her file a complaint, do you?"

Then, he had smiled and pulled Amanda to him.

The gold chain broke.

Without quite realizing it, Rush caught the ring as it fell.

Amanda frowned, as though she were not quite sure where it had come from. "It's beautiful," she said, watching the dance of lights in the heart of the stone. "What is it?"

"Mr. Gold's – Belle's husband's wedding ring."

Rush could not remember how he knew that.

It was beautiful, Rush thought, entranced by the strange play of light.

Without thinking, he slipped the ring onto his finger. It fit as though it had been made for him.

He felt something, like the flow of warm water, spreading from it.

He saw memories. Ancient battlefields, straw and gold, a beautiful woman with laughing eyes he realized was Belle – Mrs. Gold.

He felt a knife cutting into his own heart and heard the strange, high laughter of a dying man who realized he had won . . . .

The hand with the ring on it reached out and touched Amanda, who was still looking at the gem with a touch of curiosity and fascination. Her eyes closed and she slumped back on the bed.

She's still awake, a voice said inside Rush's mind. Awake and aware. Also paralyzed, for the moment. Of course, she's used to that, so I made her blind and deaf, too. A little punishment, nothing more. Don't worry. It's not permanent. I won't hurt her. Not while she's in Belle's body.

And you won't hurt Belle either. Not while you're in mine.

There was a blue glow surrounding him, coming off the gem.

Rush felt the other flowing into him.

The backup plan, the other said. When I died. I knew you – or another like you – existed in one world or another. A counterpart, of sorts, a doppelganger. That tied me to you, and I was already tied to her. So simple to bring three threads together.

If you had loved her or only been her friend, she would have been happy and I would have let you be.

Because, if you had simply let her be, even if you had just been a stranger to her, she would never have forgiven my doing this to you.

The voice changed from a soft whisper to brands burning across Rush's mind.

But, you hurt her, the voice said. Even when she faced her worst nightmare to help you –

(and the memories spilling over into Nick's mind let him know at last what those nightmares were. Not that he needed to be told. He was learning for himself what it meant to have another treat his body as a thing that didn't belong to him)

– even when you saw her here and knew you had hurt her . . . .

Choices like that come with a price, dearie, and it's time for you to pay . . . .

Rumplestiltskin chuckled as the little bit of Dr. Rush that was more than his memories or his knowledge or his clever way of thinking (Rumplestiltskin meant to keep those at hand till he was a bit more firmly settled on the ship) was tucked away. The rest he could absorb easily enough. Much of it, like the dimension spanning power of the gates and the drives of this ship, he already understood better than Nicholas Rush ever had. Centuries of studying the ways that led from one universe to another had left him as something of an expert in the field.

Meanwhile, there were more important things to deal with.

The Ancients had understood their remarkable technology as a science. But, for Rumplestiltskin, it – and its energy – were magic.

A magic he knew how to reach.

With a flicker of thought, he cut the abomination of a spell that put Amanda Perry in his wife's body. He let the little scientist scurry home to her own flesh. The spell that left her blind and deaf he left in place. For now. Belle would no doubt insist he let it go eventually, but he was not done teaching her a lesson.

Besides, it would add verisimilitude to the story he would eventually tell about the fluctuation in the engines actually breakingthe link, not just disrupting it, and sending Dr. Perry back home – complete with harmful side effects.

Meanwhile, Belle was back in her own body where she belonged.

And angry with him.

Or with Rush, but that came to the same thing.

"How could you – how dare you –"

"Belle, I'm not him. He's not here."

"What do you mean, you're not –"

Grinning, he put a finger to her lips. "He's gone, dearie. Dr. Rush had urgent business elsewhere." His smile grew larger as he took in her shock. "I promised to protect you, Belle. You might at least consider that I meant it."

"R-Rum?"

"In the flesh. So to speak."

It was not as simple as that to convince her. His Belle had always been a stubborn one.

But, in the end, she twined her arms around him as he drew her to him.

Thirty years. It had been over thirty years since he felt her lips pressed against his.

In the end, death – his death – had intervened. He had only the remnants of a last spell, a spell of protections and memory wrapped in the one keepsake he trusted her to keep.

He smiled to himself.

Tomorrow, there would be changes. Young would wake up to a Rush who never fought him, never challenged him, never disagreed in any way – then quietly won all the arguments they weren't having.

After all, the only thing to do when you had finished one game of chess was to start another.

Except, he thought, looking at Belle's crystal blue eyes, the time you spent enjoying what it meant to have won.