They're talking about putting her in an "institution."

They won't use the term asylum. That's an old-fashioned term with negative connotations, and besides, that's what Regina called her little secret lock-up for the people she wanted to keep on ice. Even the soft-hearted Snow is openly saying it would be "for the best." They've got her father convinced. Archie remains the hold-out.

Archie has seen the hellhole Regina had sentenced her to for twenty-nine years. If she goes back into another "institution," no matter how sophisticated, how humane, he says he's afraid it will "push her over the edge." And so, though they've been openly talking "institution" for six months now, no one's started the paperwork. They just watch her deteriorate and wait for someone else to make the first move.

Oh, there's no way anyone could deny it: all you need is one look at her to know they're right; if something isn't done soon, she won't survive the year. The sallow skin, the black circles under her eyes, the hesitation in her voice when she speaks about even the most mundane subject, the handfuls of hair that fall out when she uses a comb—it's all undeniable. She's not eating, she's not sleeping, she starts at the least unexpected sound, she can look no one, not even her father, in the eye. Not even me.

When you look into her eyes—and you must do so quickly, for if she catches you, she'll hide her face behind her hair—you see emptiness, vacancy. As if no one's home behind those eyes, because as far as she's concerned, no one is. That's who she is to herself: no one.

Belle is dying, and what is done cannot be undone.

Thirteen months have passed since he shot her, causing her to fall into the curse and lose herself. He's long gone, both him and his partner in crime, and we don't think about them any more. That is their punishment, Archie says: no one cares what happened to them. Their stories, as Henry would say, have been forgotten. Let that be your revenge, Archie tells me. It isn't satisfying, I answer, and he says revenge never is. I know that's true. Let us get on with the business of fixing what we can, including ourselves, he suggests. I realize he means me.

And I'm trying, for her sake, for hope's sake. That's why I come to Archie, why I'm learning to. . . talk. And to ask for help. Should a miracle occur and restore Belle to us, she will find a better man in me. I work on myself because I'm all I can undo.

She is wary of everyone but has learned to allow Ruby into her confidences. We take it as a hopeful sign that something deep down is telling Belle that Ruby was her friend. I am happy that Belle trusts someone, truly I am, but sometimes it just seems so damn unfair that she trusts a person she knew only as a casual acquaintance instead of the man she loved in two lifetimes.

It's not so much me that she fears, Archie assures me; it's magic, and the one thing she can't forget is that she saw me wielding magic that night. Archie does his best, and Belle is faithful in her daily appointments with him, but he has to admit he will never be able to discover the reason for her phobia of magic (for which the profession has no term, since the condition never existed in this world before we arrived). If he could delve into her memory, he would find the answer.

But I can't stay away from her, not completely, and especially not when she needs me most. I watch her from the window of my shop as she leans on her father's arm (what lies has he told her about me? Perhaps none; the truth alone is horrible enough) and he escorts her to Archie's office. They follow a strict routine—routines are good, Archie says: the appointment at 9, then a brunch at Granny's (pancakes, she always orders, but she cuts them into slivers and pushes them around the plate), then a walk in the park before he takes her to his shop. She's learned to arrange flowers; it soothes her and she's quite the floral artist. She waters the plants and sweeps the floor, but she never waits on the customers. The stress isn't good for her, Moe says.

In the evenings she sits in the park and reads until dark. On Saturday afternoons she sits in the library until closing; on Sunday afternoons she goes to the movies with Ruby. But as the months have passed, she's become weaker and more withdrawn, and Ruby doesn't know how to relate to her any more.

Belle is dying and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.

I have taken to hiding in the stacks of the library so I can watch her, watch out for her. Sometimes I approach her as if it's a coincidence; I say no more than hello because it's all she can take from me. Just a moment, just a word, and then I leave so she can relax again, as much as she's capable. Desensitization, Archie calls it. She will get used to me one hello at a time, and someday she won't startle when I pass her on the street.

Archie keeps a special cushion for me to use after these attempts at desensitization. So I won't break my knuckles, he says, and he has the grace to leave the room while I pummel the thing. It's a thick, smelly foam cushion (I think he allows Pongo to chew it) and on the cover someone (I suspect Emma) has painted the face of Hook.

On the night I finally admit she won't live long enough for us to have a conversation, I shred that pillow with the knife I use to gut fish.

The next Saturday changes my mind.

I'm waiting for her. Everyone knows I do this and they allow it because unlike Belle, they know my history with her. She's late, so I grab a book just for something to occupy my hands. I've flipped through half the book before I realize it's a collection of magic tales (I reject the term fairy tales). I read a few paragraphs of one: tales they are disguised as, but history is what they really are. There is a section about heroines, with Snow stories dominating. The illustrations fail to capture her sly smile. I read one of the stories and find it entertainingly factual. I turn the page to a new story, and then I have a flash of inspiration.

The title of the story is "Belle and the Yaoguaoi."

I check out the library book and hurry out, but not without my Saturday hello. I trot, though my ankle aches, to Clark's and sweep a box of pencils and spiral-bound notebooks into one of those nasty plastic shopping baskets, and I plunk the lot onto the counter. "Aren't you a bit old to be going back to school, Mr. Gold?" Clark tries to joke.

Hmm. Maybe I should experiment on him first.

I carry my purchases to Granny's and take a seat where I never have before: at the counter, where everyone can see me. I open a box of pencils and the first of the notebooks and I'm ready for business.

Damn, forgot to buy a pencil sharpener. I order a steak so that Granny will have to bring me a steak knife, and while the steak is frying I sharpen a pencil with the knife. Granny is none the wiser, though as she fills my coffee cup she peers suspiciously at the notebook. "Writing restaurant reviews for the Mirror?"

"Would you charge me extra if I said yes?"

"Probably," she admits.

Yes. She's the one I want to start with. It's barely two o'clock on a Saturday, well past the lunch rush and long before dinner, so I'm her only customer. Lack of time will not be an excuse she can use to refuse me. "This is for Belle," I say before I even ask my question. She'll listen to me now, and she'll cooperate. For Belle.

They're saying I'm different now. They're not saying it to my face, of course, but I have hired ears at strategic points around town, so nothing escapes me unless I want it to. They're saying I'm nicer.

It's not true. I've just been paying the price for the work I'm asking from them. I buy their cooperation with a little warmth. I do have it in me; it just takes a while to dig it out.

Alas, my project is nearly finished in only two weeks. Belle was here in Storybrooke such a short time; few people got to know her well. Only three people knew her at all in the Enchanted Forest: me, of course; Regina, whom I will approach last; and the man I'm seeking out now.

Knocking on this door is one of the hardest things I've done. He would slam the door in my face if I hadn't brought protection: Archie. No one can slam the door in Archie's face, Regina excepted. He smiles his bashful smile and the door remains open, partially.

This time I won't start with "It's for Belle." It's best I bring her name up near the end of the conversation. "I've been working on a project and I'd like to invite you to participate. Everyone else in town has." I've stretched the truth on that: everyone whom I've asked has participated: ten people. Before the door can close, I add hastily, "Dr. Hopper is helping me." And then I toss out my last offering: humbleness. "Please."

"Why should I help you, after all the damage you've caused my family?" He starts to poke me in the chest but he backs down at the last minute. He's a head taller and a hundred pounds heavier than I am, but I still scare him, even as I stand here on his doorstep, my head lowered. His voice chokes. "It's your fault she is the way she is, Gold. You led her into that den of vipers—you were the biggest snake in the pit!"

"Mr. French, you're not helping anyone with these accusations," Archie breaks in. "You'd do well to listen to Mr. Gold. The project he's working on is Belle's best hope."

The florist folds his arms and after a long silence he prompts, "I'm listening—Hopper." French is verbally slapping me: he's saying he won't trust me long enough to hear my request from me; it will have to come from Archie.

I give Archie a small nod. He frowns but acquiesces to French. "May we come in, please, Mr. French?"

No one says no to Archie.

My project is finished at last. I've had it typed and bound in leather—my penmanship, once elegant, has deteriorated in recent years, and I want this to be perfect. I make an arrangement with the librarian; she refuses any sort of exchange of favors. "Of course I'll do it, Mr. Gold. You don't owe me anything." A noble profession, librarianship. I shall make an anonymous donation to the book fund regardless.

Just as the giving of this book must be anonymous. Still, I allow myself the reward of watching from my hiding place in the stacks as the librarian greets Belle on her Saturday visit. "Belle! I have something for you. Someone left this book for you."

"To keep?" Belle wonders, running her hand over the embossed title: The Lady Belle.

"It's your story," the librarian says.

Belle looks puzzled but not skeptical, for who doesn't trust a librarian? She lifts the cover and peers at the front page: A Biography, by the people who love her.

It's a book of memories, every Belle story the Storybrookers can remember: heroic, silly, sad, sweet—and even the wretched, for after a long debate with myself I decided to interview Regina too. I couldn't write as I listened to Regina relate all that she had done to Belle, there and here; my hands shook with rage so that I couldn't hold a pen. I left it to my audio recorder while I took on the work of preventing myself from strangling her.

When it was over, I gave the recorder to Archie so he would have a better understanding of what Belle had suffered. He and I then had a long talk about whether this chapter should be omitted. He left the final decision to me (and they called me a coward).

In the end I included the chapter. Lady Belle and Belle French would have wanted no less than the truth.

The longest chapter in Belle's book is mine. I did my best to be honest, even when it hurt. It took me weeks to write because I found myself falling to the temptation to rewrite our history, to minimize my culpability so she wouldn't hate me. When my writing veered to fiction, I tore it up and started again. It was what I owed her.

I discovered I owed it to myself too. The writing forced me to face myself: the bastard everyone knows me to be—the bastard I wanted everyone to know me to be—and the hardest for me to accept: the broken, loving man that still lives in me.

"She's grateful for the attempt, but she says it feels like someone else's life," Archie reports. "None of the stories triggered a memory for her. I'm sorry, Rumplestiltskin."

"None?" Not even mine?

"I'm sorry," Archie says again. "But in time. . . She reads a story every night before going to bed. She's read the book through twice so far. Perhaps the third time will be the charm."

Charm. Yes, I know all about charms, charms and potions and spells. I have a thousand of them. What I don't have is a cure for the woman I love.

I awaken in the middle of the night with an ache in my hands: I was clenching my hands in my sleep. I sit up and reorganize my pillows. . . and glance over at my right. She's not there, I know that, but I can't help looking anyway. I know what it looks like, what it sounds like, how the room changes when Belle is there. I bury my face in my hands and howl my pain.

I have been dreaming about her. Since I lost her, my dreams have felt more real than my waking life. In my dreams I remember everything: the smell of her hair, the smoothness of her lips, the taste of the skin in the hollow of her collarbone, the sound of her breathing when she's dreaming.

In my dreams I remember.

In her dreams does she remember?

I shoot out of bed.

I'm at Archie's house waiting on the steps when he steps out to walk Pongo. He hasn't even had his morning coffee and already I'm pestering him; he must rue the day he took me on as a client. But I suppose I pay him well, in both money and intellectual challenges, so maybe it's not such a bad bargain.

As Pongo pauses at every corner to read the calling cards of other dogs and leave his own, I describe what I have in mind. Unlike most Storybrookers, he isn't prejudiced against magic, but he doesn't trust it either. I tell him that's because he's only seen it misused, by fairies as well as sorcerers.

"Try it on me first," he says abruptly—maybe because he hasn't had his coffee. "If it does no harm, I'll talk to Belle about it."

We try it that night. In the morning he talks to Belle.

French is hard to convince. It's almost laughable: it's not the magic he objects to, it's my presence in his daughter's bedroom (but it's okay for Archie to be there). He insists on remaining in the room.

"How do you expect me to sleep with three men in my room?" Belle huffs, but she agrees; she's curious, she says. She's not afraid until I bring the magic to my hands, and then she stiffens under her quilt. It's the magic she fears, not me. Not me, I assure myself. There's one small lamp burning on her nightstand. In its shadow I pass my hand over her eyes. "Just relax, Belle, and listen to my story. It's a happy dream you'll have tonight; you'll rest well." My magic eases the tension in her body, blankets her mind. My voice carries a hidden message: try to remember me. I'm the man who's loved you a hundred years.

"Once upon a time, there was a brave young duchess named Belle. . . ."

"Did it work?" French minces no words.

"Perhaps we'll find out in the morning," Archie suggests.

"And every night you want to do this?"

I incline my head. "I have seventy stories to give her."

I buy an "out of business" sign for my shop. My work now is Belle.

In the morning Archie phones me: at her appointment this morning Belle reports she slept very well indeed; she knows she dreamt, but alas, she can't describe it. She can't remember it.

I won't give up. She's resting and that's progress. Every night when she retires I'm there at her side. Her father brings a wingback chair in for me. The black circles have gone from her eyes. As weeks pass, Archie stops coming, French waits in the living room watching the late show. We leave her bedroom door open. She no longer cowers from the magic. Tentatively, she begins to ask me questions about it, like those my grandson asks: Where does it come from? How does it work? Does it hurt my hands?

One night when I arrive she takes me into the kitchen for tea. The chamomile will help her relax, she says; she will soon be ready to sleep, but not just yet. For now, she would like to talk. She asks me about myself, easy questions of the sort people ask each other when they hope to move from acquaintanceship to friendship. I give her honest but simple answers; I don't want to scare her away. When she asks a question that would lead down a rough road, I tell her not yet. Someday I will answer the question, but not today.

We develop a half-life in this way. I begin to arrive a little early, by accident, I claim at first; later, I don't bother to make polite excuses. We drink tea at the kitchen table and talk, and sometimes, accidentally, caught up in the emotion of conversation, she grasps my hand, touches my arm. Does this Belle know what her touch does to me? Ah, but the Belles of the past could flirt! Their charms would leave me powerless.

Every night I tell her another story from her past. Every night she sleeps in peace.

And then I come at last to our story. I tell it true, all of it, even the end of the first chapter, in which our heroine strikes out on her own to meet the world, and the villain gets his comeuppance with a wicked lie. For a hundred years the beast is left alone with only his broken heart and—

"And a chipped cup," Belle whispers.

Thunderstruck, I stop talking. I wait for her to say more, but she doesn't. I study her face, her breathing. She is asleep. Belle never talked in her sleep before.

I stand as quietly as I can, the tapping of my cane as I walk away the only sound.

The next night, I tell her chapter two, in which the beast and his beauty reunite in the new world.

I dread chapter three.

I am awakened by a pounding at my door. I almost trip coming down the stairs. My heart shudders with every bang on the door. Is she hurt? Is she sick? Belle is so much in my mind that it doesn't occur to me the emergency could concern Bae or Henry or anyone else.

I throw the door open and she flies into my arms. She is in her robe and slippers, and her skin is cool from the night air. She seizes my face between her hands and draws me down, and her mouth seeks mine. I give her my kiss and my longing; she gives me her kiss and her joy.

"And then the lost girl who was once upon a time a duchess felt the ground grow solid beneath her feet, felt the spring wind against her cheek, and the world about her came into focus. The curse had been broken at long last, and everything about her was real. She called to the man who walked the path ahead of her, and he turned and she knew him. 'Wait. Rumplestiltskin, wait,' she said. 'I remember.' The story you told me last night. I dreamt it, and it was real, and I remember." Her face is wet, my face is wet. "Rumplestiltskin, I remember."

My heart is in my throat and I echo dumbly, "Everything?"

"Everything, and the most important thing: I love you."

"'Yes. Yes, and I love you too.'"

Her head settles into the space between my chest and my shoulder. It fits perfectly. Everything fits now. She's right: everything.