A/N: This is an idea I've had for a while but haven't had the courage or the time to try until lumiereandpenumbra's prompt got me thinking on it again - so thanks for the prompt, lumiere! :) It is Regina's POV, but it's pretty much all Rumbelle anyway, with hints of Stable Queen also woven throughout because I'm of the opinion that you can't have Regina without a bit of Daniel. She's very complicated in her simplicity, so I hope she's in-character throughout the story. As always, I really do hope you all enjoy and I would love to know what you thought of it!

The Heart Of The Beast

"Now show me what you've learned—immobilize it."

"What is wrong with you?" Regina finally snaps when she can take it no more, and for the first time since she summoned him, Rumplestiltskin comes to a standstill. He cocks his head, peers at her, and despite all the years she's known him, she can't help the coiled fear sitting in her belly, every bit as strong as it was when she clumsily read his name from a book and turned to find him lounging in her chair.

"What's wrong with me?" he asks. It sounds absurd, derisive even, on his tongue. That is Rumplestiltskin's gift, after all—to bend words to his will, shape them to his mold, do his bidding. His taloned hands rise between them, steepled and still but oh so sharp and dangerous. "Why, nothing at all! But I could ask what's gotten into you. In fact, I think I will." He pauses for effect, and Regina feels her usual frustrated impatience at his antics. "What, Your Majesty," he quotes, with a flourish at the end of each of his words, "is wrong with you?"

"Nothing!" She purses her lips tightly, distressed that he can so easily make her lose her composure. Hating even more that he can see through her so easily. It's just so insanely frustrating! He's been beside her every step of the way, teaching her anything and everything she asked, helping her. But now, when she needs him most, when Snow is moving against her, he stops coming to her calls, avoids teaching her more, has all but straight out told her he is done with her. Again. He's abandoned her, and cold displeasure runs through Regina's veins, cooling her flush of embarrassment.

"Something's wrong," Rumplestiltskin teases, dancing closer, closer, always too close but never quite touching. Almost like old times, but not quite. Once, he was unafraid to get near her, to push so deep into her personal space that she would wonder, later, why others stayed so far away in comparison. Once, he hovered over her shoulder or framed her face in his hands as he spun out magic's mysteries before her. But now…now he is distant. Now, even when he stands a pace away and smirks at her as if she is still just as ignorant and untried as in the days of her first lessons, he still isn't truly there with her.

Regina scowls and paces away, moves closer to the mirror where she knows her genie is watching. He always watches her, and she craves the stability of his presence. Craves stability of any kind. Her reflection stares back at her, robed in black, outlined in white, lightning captured in shadowed eyes. A Queen. An Evil Queen. The Evil Queen.

She watches her back stiffen, her chin cant higher into the air, her expression firm and reshape itself into imperiousness worthy of a queen and a sorceress. Satisfied with the picture she presents, she turns to face Rumplestiltskin. He smiles at her as if she is a child performing tricks for him, but she refuses to let him faze her. Regina is his student, but the Evil Queen is strong on her own and isn't afraid of him. Not really.

"I need you to help me," she says coolly. "You've taught me only the very basics of shape-shifting, and that isn't—"

"Oh, yes, did I forget to mention how utterly captivating those highlights look?" Rumplestiltskin releases his usual disconcerting giggle after the words, as if he is mocking her. More normality. More of what he usually does, but still there is something missing. Something not quite right. Something…different about him. He ignores her to sniff her flowers now, and he dresses less like a dragon-like imp and more like a man, and he smiles to himself at odd moments. He's acting…well, he's acting as the genie did, before she gave him a two-headed viper and he banished himself to reflections.

He acts as if he is in love.

But that's ridiculous. He's Rumplestiltskin. Dark One. Imp. Immortal sorcerer.

But, Regina realizes, studying him with narrowed eyes, still a man.

"Highlights aren't everything," Regina says, a bit belatedly. "Snow White is still on the loose—she's already robbed three of my carriages! Those Wanted posters aren't doing any good!"

"Well, then…" Rumplestiltskin swivels away from her on the balls of his feet, his hand waving a careless gesture over his shoulder. "I foresee an easy solution…"

"Yes?" Regina prompts impatiently.

"Stop sending your carriages along the same road!" Rumplestiltskin exclaims, whirling to face her with a gleeful shriek.

Fury floods her, strong and enabling and emboldening. She huffs angrily, then forces out a laugh. "The world's most powerful sorcerer," she taunts him. "And that's the best you can come up with?"

"The Evil Queen," Rumplestiltskin taunts back, "and you can't deal with one backwards princess?"

"Yes, well, we can't all turn beloved princesses into our maids," Regina bites. It isn't a good rejoinder—she knows it even as she makes the remark about one of his more talked about deals—but Rumplestiltskin freezes, his smirk falling away. For an instant—one breathless moment—he is completely still, utterly silent, almost expressionless.

She has never seen the like from him before.

But, as mercurial as always, Rumplestiltskin sneers, then, and shrugs. "Maids," he sniffs. "They're more trouble than they're worth—if you want my advice, you'll definitely go a different route with your stepdaughter."

"Don't call her that," Regina says, but the command is more habit than anything. She regards Rumplestiltskin carefully, notes his impatient fidgeting, his errant pacing, the way he tugs at his sleeves or rights his collar or brushes off invisible specks from his trousers.

Rumplestiltskin is in love. Or thinks he is. Or is in the process of falling in love. He is distracted, anyway, and that can only be an advantage. Maybe the reason he isn't as much help as he once was is because he can't help her. Maybe he no longer teaches her much because he doesn't have much left to teach that she doesn't already know.

Maybe she doesn't need him anymore.

After all, he has a weakness now. A vulnerability. And Regina knows better than most just how foolish it is to leave one of those lying around in the stables for little girls and ruthless mothers to find.

Rumplestiltskin doesn't seem to notice her sudden preoccupation with his heart—more proof if she needs any that he is distracted. "Why not invite other royals to travel along that road?" he asks carelessly. "Tell them it's more scenic. When they start getting robbed, they'll be more motivated to help you find your bandit princess. In the meantime, send your carriages along a different route. There are more roads than one, after all; some are just more out of the way than others."

"Fine," Regina says, careful to sound somewhat sulky, as if she is simply dissatisfied with his non-magical solution. As if she isn't selecting the best way to finagle a chat with his maid. As if she isn't plotting his downfall. "But it'll take longer this way."

Rumplestiltskin's eyes narrow, his shoulders shrinking for an instant. She almost takes a step back when he meets her gaze. "Patience, dearie," he says, his voice almost, almost, normal, "is sometimes the highest price we have to pay to get what we want."

And he is gone, a flash of smoke and the scent of straw and metal and magic wafting through the empty space he leaves behind.

Regina smiles, wide and dark and promising. "Patience," she repeats. "Yes, Rumple, I can be patient."

He is her teacher, after all, and if there is one thing he's taught her above all, it is to always, always have a loophole to take advantage of. He should have known she'd use his lessons against him one day. He should have known she'd watch him as closely as he watches her, look for his weaknesses as adeptly as he manipulates hers, seek to ensnare him in better and newer traps than he's laid for her.

He should know she's smart enough to watch his castle and take advantage when his pretty little maid walks out the front gate with a cloak clasped around her throat and a basket hanging over her arm.

"There," Regina says proudly as she materializes her black carriage on the road behind the oblivious princess. "I did it."

"Excellent work, my apprentice. Now there's one last tiny, tiny, teeny little detail…take its heart."

"Like my mother did to—"

"Ahh, to your true love? Indeed! Then you already know how it's done."

Rumplestiltskin is her teacher. He told her she was special, important, someone with magic in her bones and destiny at her fingertips. But he's wasted no time in abandoning her, leaving her to fend for herself in order to spend time with his maid, and for the first moments on that path, Regina is careful. She is cautious, alert to any sign that this maid is more than just a princess who made a foolish deal, that she is dangerous or mysteriously powerful.

But there is nothing.

The girl tries to evade, but in the end she spills her woes to Regina as if she has never met an enemy in her life—and if she can smile when she mentions her 'master,' then apparently she's too stupid to recognize a villain when it stares right at her. She keeps her words vague, but she doesn't hesitate to use the word 'love'—and even though Regina saw this girl come out of the Dark Castle's front gates, she still can't help but wonder if she's gotten the wrong girl, if Rumplestiltskin has pulled some trick and made her follow some other person's serving girl.

This girl is harmless. She doesn't know magic, doesn't possess anything to threaten Regina.

But she is far from useless.

Regina swallows back her astonishment at the girl's idealism and lets herself smile. She had planned on killing Rumplestiltskin's new plaything, ripping out her heart and crushing it to powder, then demanding that Rumplestiltskin stop avoiding her. But the maid is here, walking free, headed toward town. Running away.

And the Castle's gates opened for her.

And Rumplestiltskin is nowhere to be seen.

He's let her go.

This—this girl, this woman so young and kind and smiling and harmless—is more than a distraction to him. This is important. This is perfect.

So Regina smiles and wraps her arm around the girl and says, "Sounds like a curse to me. And all curses can be broken."

What is it Rumple told her when she asked about sleeping curses? Ah, yes.

She looks into the girl's hopeful eyes—so pretty, so innocent, so gullible—and says, "True Love's Kiss can break any curse."

The girl smiles, and Regina can all but taste her hope, her resolve, her purpose.

It's easy to make her excuses and leave, easy to watch from afar and make certain the maid turns back to the Dark Castle, her basket full of straw, her heart full of hope. Regina certainly hadn't planned on doing away with Rumplestiltskin, but if he isn't willing to share his knowledge with her anymore, then he has too much power, and he's always kept his own plans and motives too close to his vest. Besides, isn't she doing him a favor this way? She sent the girl back, after all; he can't ask for more than that. It isn't Regina's fault if the silly girl actually decides to kiss the Dark One himself.

"Love is weakness," Regina murmurs to her loyal mirror. He doesn't reply, but then, the very fact that he is there to hear her is proof enough of the truth of her statement. The fact that she is there, in Leopold's palace, surrounded by her guardsmen, arrayed in luxury, is proof enough.

Love never comes to any good. If it did, she'd be living in a crude cabin near a stable, and she'd be happy. But that's only a fairytale, and fairytales end only in dust and ash and broken hearts. She should know. Every time she moves, the jagged edges of her heart grate against her breastbone. She's learned to live with it—she's had to—but it never goes away. It never gets better. It never eases into the past.

It simply is.

One day, very soon, Rumplestiltskin will know what that feels like. In this, she will be the teacher and he her apprentice.

In this, she knows more than he does.

But not for long.

"Gentle. If you do it right, no harm will befall it. Unless, of course, you will it."

She is exultant and awash with triumph, when he pulls the cover from his mirror and snarls at her like the beast he is. Oh, how she laughs at him and the terrible pain he hides like an animal, hissing and licking at its wounds, all bristly and defiant to distract from its vulnerability, as he threatens and accuses and postures before her.

"Who's the weak one now?" she taunts and does not even care that he cannot hear her.

It's impressive, how much damage Rumplestiltskin can do when he lets go of his own restraint. Even Regina has to raise a brow in astonishment when he turns to prowl toward his maid, who's still trying so hard to calm him, tame him, as if she is the unicorn that can bring this wicked creature to heel.

"This means it's true love!" the girl says over Rumplestiltskin's accusations.

Regina tilts her head, shares a contemplative gaze with her mirror. The kiss actually worked? "Amazing," she murmurs. She does not know what she is more surprised at—that Rumplestiltskin doesn't hurt the girl at all, not even by transforming her into a piece for his collection, or that the girl actually does love the old imp.

Or did love him, because surely after being shouted at and tossed into a cell, she's through with the wizened little imp.

"See?" Regina sneers. "I'm doing you a favor."

She expects that to be the end of it, but Rumplestiltskin doesn't seem to notice that the mirror is left uncovered. He walks back into his hall, the girl securely locked away, and for all his purported centuries, Regina has never seen him look old—until now. He walks as if he will come apart at the seams, as if each joint will pop and dislocate until he tumbles to the ground as a pile of shiny bones pointing the way to an abandoned basket of straw. He reaches out a hand that trembles and brushes his taloned fingers—black and gray and sparkling as if with dust—against the green cloak slung over a chair's back.

And then, so quickly Regina blinks and jumps despite herself, Rumplestiltskin is a blur of motion, of rage, of despair, all grace and purpose and hopelessness. The cloak is torn to shreds, the chair knocked aside, the stands with their artifacts and trophies so proudly displayed all knocked askew, the cabinets shattered and smashed with an old, withered walking stick. And then Rumplestiltskin looks at the tea set sitting on the table. For an instant, he hesitates—Regina watches, curious, disturbed, sickly mesmerized by this tantrum.

He clutches the first cup. Stares at it. Hurls it against the far wall. The next cup, gliding to his hand as if by magic, the next, the next, the sugar dish, all of them discarded and destroyed.

And then he stops. He peers at the cup in his hand as if it is power and magic and a stable boy's heart, turned to porcelain and left with a chip to mark it as worthless. Regina waits for him to throw it, but he never does. Instead, he sets it down, and he walks away, and aside from the shudders running through him, the lines of tension in his face, the unsteadiness of his steps, no one would know that he has just obliterated his own front hall.

Regina wants to make a remark, to prove she is untouched and unaffected. But she says nothing. Her voice has dried up in her throat and she cannot swallow. She sent the girl back to distract Rumplestltskin, to take away his magic if she could, to prove to both Rumplestiltskin and herself that the apprentice has become a master in her own right.

Instead, she has found that Rumplestiltskin owns a heart, and oddly enough, Regina thinks that he is more surprised by the realization than she is.

It's not like him to be so weak, so fragile, to care so much. It's not like him to let anything go.

But he is, and he does.

"Oh, Rumple," Regina tsks admonishingly the next morning. There is the girl, walking out of the front gates again. She carries no basket. She doesn't smile. She walks with her head bowed and her shoulders slumped, that spark of idealism and gullibility extinguished.

But she is alive and she is free and she is still so very, very useful.

Rumplestiltskin should know better than to leave such powerful weapons lying about, Regina thinks, but if he chooses to be so careless, then he certainly shouldn't be surprised when she decides to pick up the carelessly discarded chink in his armor and hide her away for a rainy day.

She learned from the best, after all—he would never let such an opportunity slip him by, and so she will not either.

"I can't! It's innocent!"

"Nothing is innocent!"

Whatever Regina expected from a woman intriguing enough to get beneath Rumplestiltskin's skin, Belle isn't it. She's both rashly bold and deceptively demure, both stubborn and kind. She attempts to befriend the guards but only succeeds in doing so by granting them disappointed looks whenever they are cruel or mocking. She sets her shoulders straight, clenches her hands into fists at her side, glares at Regina, and defiantly states that she will never be able to succeed in keeping her away from Rumplestiltskin, but she goes quiet and still and loose when Regina reveals Rumplestiltskin's evil dealings. She never gives up hope, even when her own eyes go numb and distant. Her bold proclamations and brave denouncements fade until there are soft words and quiet looks yet still Regina can sense her defiance, burning beneath her skin like alabaster fire.

"He's a monster," Regina tells her condescendingly. There are no bars between them, only the circular sigil engraved on the floor, cast into shadow and light by the cold window in the ceiling, warding off Rumplestiltskin or anyone else that might search for the lowly princess. No bars, but there is a distance Regina can't seem to bridge no matter what she says, what magic she uses, what threats she employs.

"He's not," Belle says softly, but she doesn't look at Regina. She huddles on her cot, her arms wrapped around her knees, and she stares at something past Regina, something that's not even there.

Regina tilts her head curiously. "Why do you think that?" she finally asks, because she's always wanted to know. Because she can't figure out this beauty and the beast—what there is between them, what made a kind princess look at a rotting sorcerer and see something other than his addictive magic and seducing words and entrapping deals.

"He loves," Belle says, and for the first time in weeks, she turns to look straight at Regina. There is an indictment in her eyes, unspoken, but blazing there like sunlight against mirrors.

"Does he?" Regina retorts. There's something sharp and piercing gnawing its way through her heart, but she ignores it. There are tears pricking against the back of her eyes, but fear is weakness and weakness is something she can't afford, so she blinks and pretends her eyes are dry. "Tell me, if he loves, then why are you here…and not with him?"

And finally, after all this time, there is a flash of raw, urgent pain ghosting across Belle's face until she has to look away again, her fingers gone white and tight over her knees. "He's out of practice," she murmurs, but her voice is so weak Regina doesn't even have to make any final retort other than a disdainful laugh as she sweeps out of the cell. Behind her, the door slams closed, its echo and the memory of Belle's own words all the sound allowed in this desolate tower.

"Are you all right, Your Majesty?" her mirror asks her, but Regina does not dare look at him lest she catch sight of her own reflection and see the emptiness inside.

He loves, Belle had said. As if Regina doesn't. As if it something only an express few can share.

As if it is not the reason Regina is here at all, a Queen known as black and dark, alone and isolated, a woman who's already lost everything even though she's winning her war.

He loves. As if love could do anything but bring you down and leave you broken and shattered and lost with only the aftertaste of apples and the scent of straw to cling to in the lonely nights

Regina walks, quickly, past hallways and rooms full of mirrors. She look straight ahead, seeing nothing, remembering everything. She does not stop until she stands on the balcony outside her room, where there are no mirrors, no walls, no gilded cages or magical locks. Just her, on the edge. Alone.

"Really, Rumple?" she mutters, because it's easier to talk to her errant mentor—the one who led her down these roads, who gave her the avenue to power even as he guided her away from freedom—than to face herself. "Why this girl? Her idealism alone should have made you laugh yourself hoarse for decades."

But there is no answer. No solution to the mystery. Only a girl sitting in a tower, locked away from everything she ever wanted and possessing everything her mother predicted. Only a girl who is now a queen with her teacher's true love as her prisoner.

"You're not hurting the beast—you're controlling it."

It grows tiresome, after a while, to question and mock her prisoner. With Snow and Charming reunited and married and Regina herself banished, she needs a victory, a silver lining to adorn the clouds surrounding her. She needs, above all, a way to make Rumplestiltskin stop giggling at her and actually give her a solution rather than more cryptic hints.

She needs a bargaining chip.

Really, she's almost embarrassed at how long it takes her to realize just how she can use the weapon sitting in her specialized cell. But then, she never had the motivation to strike out at Rumplestiltskin so deeply before, not until Maleficent lets slip that Rumplestiltskin is the one who helped Snow's charming prince find her coffin to kiss away her sleeping curse.

Anger, bright and burning and so invigorating, rushes through her until she is filled to bursting with purpose and intent and magic. The glass vial in her hand is warm, heated by her own bruising grip, curved just so in her palm, and Regina can't help but smile at it as she holds it up in front of Belle.

"What is it?" the girl asks warily, shrinking back a bit.

"It's your salvation," Regina replies. Quickly, fueled by that lovely fury licking its slow, potent way through her veins, along her bones, snapping outward from her hair, she reaches out and plucks a strand of hair from Belle's head. The girl recoils, but it's too late. Regina drops the hair into the water, watches it turn milky, and then something twinges inside of her as the potion is made complete. "Here," she says, and she offers the vial to Belle.

Belle stares up at her, caught with indecision. "What does it do?" she asks.

"It will make all of your troubles disappear." Regina laughs. They call her evil, but this, this is mercy, and she offers it to Belle free of charge. One of them should be able to move on past what that twisted imp has made of them both. "One sip and you won't be a prisoner anymore. One gulp of this potion and you won't remember any of it—Rumplestiltskin, whatever happened between the two of you, your imprisonment, none of it. You'll be yourself again, and then…well, then there won't be any reason to keep you here, will there?"

The sharp, indrawn breath that catches in Belle's throat is so ragged, so shaky, that Regina knows she has won. Who wouldn't want to forget Rumplestiltskin? Even her mother, as powerful and certain as she is, had set Rumplestiltskin to the past. Regina will, soon, when she takes away his heart and leaves him only ashes and the past, when she figures out how to cast his curse.

The cell is silent, so utterly silent, as Belle reaches out a trembling hand toward the potion Regina offers her. "Forget," she says. "I'll forget it all?"

"Yes," Regina hisses, leaning nearer, nearer, the potion so very close to Belle's reaching hands.

A tiny sob emerges from the girl's throat, tears escaping hooded eyes to snake twin trails down porcelain cheeks. "His spinning, and his laugh, and his eyes," she whispers. "His hands, and the way he watched me, and the secrets hidden in what he didn't say. The library, and the forest, and the curtains? Him?"

"All of it," Regina promises.

She has no warning, only the abrupt transformation of tears into steel. Belle's reaching hand strikes faster than magic, knocking the potion out of Regina's own hand and sending it crashing to the floor. The potion spatters over the silhouetted sigil and shards of glass, useless. Wasted.

With a snarl, Regina slams Belle back against the wall. "What are you doing?" she cries out.

Belle looks down at her, calm and controlled for all that magic holds her constrained against a prison wall. "I don't want to forget," she says, and Regina is queen and Belle nothing more than a tattered and forgotten princess, but it is Belle who sounds more regal than Cora or Snow or Regina herself. "He said he wanted to forget, but he didn't, not really. He did it to remember, don't you see, and so will I."

"Why?" Regina demands, the question torn from her, because she cannot understand why anyone would want to remember, to hurt, to be locked away. She doesn't want to remember, but she can't help it, can't shut the memories away, can't let them die when he's dead and she's the only one who can keep him alive through pale, weakening memories. She doesn't know why she hasn't made herself a potion and drunk it down and made everything right again.

"Because I love him," Belle replies.

Regina shuts herself down, wraps herself behind thick, cool walls, the place she went when Cora held her in the air and hurt her until she apologized, the refuge she retreated to when her daddy told her everything would be all right before he left her alone with Cora. The haven she's kept with her since a heart fell like dust to patter soundlessly against stable floors.

"Then you're more of a fool than I'd thought," she says coldly. She lets the girl drop back to the bed, but a wave of her hand locks shackles around her wrists and ankles, punishment enough and more than for a girl who craves freedom more than air.

She sweeps toward the door but stops long enough to look back over her shoulder and say, "He's already forgotten you, you know. He's the one who taught me how to make this potion—you really think he wouldn't erase you from his mind?"

She pretends that these last, spiteful words give her a reflection of victory. She pretends she doesn't hear Belle whisper, "He remembers. It's what he does."

She pretends. It's what she's best at.

It's all that's left.

At least in this world.

"Now, show me you know what to do with that power—kill it."

His face, his crushed voice, the flicker of dying hope in his eyes when she told him his Belle was dead, it was all worth the plans the girl had ruined when she'd swept aside Regina's potion. His dejected posture, his tremulous tone, his hopeful little offer of a home—it made Regina thrill with the power she held over him. Always, it was him who appeared and dangled tiny little tidbits of hope or defeat in front of her, who taught her or denied her, then left her alone and lacking. But this time, it was her. Her who laughed and mocked and crushed his heart before him and left him with nothing at all.

She'd thought it the best moment of all their interactions. Until now. When he sits in yet another cell in another world and he stares up at her, and this time, even with the word please between them, she's still in control. She's still winning.

He glares at her through the bars, but no matter how much he threatens, she knows he will give her what she wants. He will trade away his name and his knowledge and his help, because she holds that chipped cup in her possession.

"Tell me your name," she commands him intently, purposefully, slowly. Relishing this moment, the fury in his eyes and the tremble of his hands and the bars between them.

"Rumplestiltskin," he finally hisses back at her.

Despite herself, despite the fact that she'd guessed this, that she'd assumed, that she is firmly in control, she can't help but gasp and lean backward, a tiny tremor of fear worming through her.

But not for long.

A chipped cup, the only thing to survive his violent, destructive rage so long ago. A tiny, broken thing, and he will give away his name. Give away his position of power. Give away his plans.

All of this he gives her, and he doesn't even realize she has Belle herself still locked up and alive.

And he must never know.

Once, it was a good idea, a bargaining chip she could use, a chess piece she deliberated on moving. But now…well, now too much time has passed, and she has missed her chance to use the girl for anything but her own secret pleasure, knowing what she holds of his. Knowing that she owns his heart and controls it more firmly than he can her with his pleases and his plots and his deals with Ms. Swan.

No, now, Belle can be nothing but dead. Forever. And knowing that, knowing what she holds of his—knowing what it's like to have true love taken away forever—she can smile fiercely and lean close and warn him that she's the one who has power now.

It's her town, her rules, and her victory.

"I won," she reminds herself, and to prove it, she visits the fallen princess in her cell.

Blue eyes look up at her through the heavy door between them, and Regina sighs and smiles. There's no trace of recognition, no defiance, no soft reproach, nothing but blankness. Cold, dead blankness with nothing behind it.

Shuddering, Regina slams shut the peephole and turns away. She's stared into reflections too long already; no need to look any longer.

"You've seen it done, now do it yourself. Show me you can take the next step in your training. Crush it."

She knew she would die, when Rumplestiltskin confronted her—again with bars between them, but this time, it was her on the wrong side of them. He spoke Belle's name, such terrible, awful rage as she has never seen before writhing in his eyes, and she breathed in what she knew would be her last breath.

Except that it wasn't, and it still shocks her that he let her live.

He does not kill her, not then, not later, not at all, because Belle asked him not to, and Regina knows she was right to take the girl as a precautionary measure. Knows that Belle is too dangerous with Rumplestiltskin—because what if Belle decides to ask Rumplestiltskin for Regina's heart? Or for Henry's? Or for Storybrooke to become nothing more than a pile of cinders? He would do it for her, too. He will do anything for Belle, and no one needs that type of power. Rumplestiltskin couches himself in deals and manipulations and games of strategy, but Belle? Belle is a wildcard, an enigma, passion in her veins that can so easily become kindness, empathy that can so easily be twisted to bitterness, her motives and goals veiled in secrecy even after decades of being Regina's prisoner.

Belle is dangerous, Regina knows, her hold over Rumplestiltskin absurdly frightening.

Regina tells herself these things, over and over again, as she visits the hospital with the steps of the curse outlined in her head. It was Rumplestiltskin who gave her this curse; only fitting that it be what keeps Belle from the leash she holds on the Dark One. From exercising her power over Rumplestiltskin.

Belle is dangerous, that's why Regina summons up a trigger object and shows it to the blank slate sitting on the hospital bed and smiling at Regina as if she weren't her captor and executioner. Easier to think on all the many reasons Rumplestiltskin doesn't deserve to have a true love, or to get his son back, or to be biologically connected to Henry when even Regina doesn't have that connection—to live after her mother died, one life exchanged for another, much less worthier one—easier to think on all these reasons than the simple fear and unworthiness that had consumed her when Rumplestiltskin simply…forgot about her.

He didn't kill her, didn't strike her down or attack her. He did something much worse—he just cut her off. She isn't his confidante or accomplice or ally anymore. She's alive only by the grace of Belle. He was her mentor, her teacher, but now, it is as if she is nothing. Belle is at his side, now, and there is no room for Regina.

It isn't fair. Not when Regina has done everything he ever wanted or asked or taught. Not when she was the one to sacrifice what she loved most in order to cast his curse!

So she takes Belle. Again—because if he hasn't learned his lesson about leaving vulnerabilities around to exploit, she can hardly be blamed for taking advantage. Because it's safer for Henry and Storybrooke this way. Because he doesn't deserve to be happy when she isn't.

"What have you done with Belle?" he demands when he stalks into her office, all empty threats and blustering fire and crushed heart.

"Oh, you mean Lacey," she taunts him, and laughs because still he will not touch her. He cast her aside and ignored her, but in the end, he needs her. He is too used to battling with her, too comfortable with their give and take, and he does not know how to go on without her. She taught him to fear as much as he taught her to inspire it, and he needs her as much as she needs him. It seems a shallow victory in comparison to what she'd once had, but he is still alone. Still heartbroken. Still desolate. And so in the end, it's victory all the same, and that's what matters.

"No."

But she forgot one thing, she realizes as she stands on the docks beside the Jolly Roger and watches Rumplestiltskin walk toward her, calm and whole and dangerous, Belle hanging onto his arm with both hands, her own expression wary. Belle. Not blank Belle, not Lacey, but Belle, the woman who looks at Regina and sees cells and shackles and proffered potions. The princess who keeps Regina alive every day simply by her hold on Rumplestiltskin.

She'd remembered all of Rumplestiltskin's lessons—the magic, the philosophies, the warnings, the temptations—all but one piece. The most important piece of all, Regina thinks, a mere yard between her and the man who has been her beast and imp and master and foe and puppeteer and victim.

"When you take a heart," he'd told her, sibilant and jubilant, menacing and maniacal, "it becomes enchanted. Stronger than a normal heart."

Strong. Enchanted. Unbeatable.

Regina can't help but flinch back when Rumplestiltskin's gaze flicks across her as if she doesn't even exist, when Belle's stare is leveled at her, neutral and flat and so very impassive. There is too much to worry about when Henry is gone, ripped away from her and stolen from this world, vanished through a green portal—and maybe this is just the last, most important lesson Rumplestiltskin had to teach her, to have her son ripped from her as his was. Maybe this is his last chess-master move to turn her into him, a beast with nothing left to lose. A monster who will stop at nothing to achieve her goal. A villain who isn't because she loves, loves with everything she is and has.

Too much to worry about—because Henry cannot be lost forever and Regina cannot turn into Rumplestiltskin, lusting after power and playing the world like a strategy game just like her mother—so she doesn't know why she takes this extra moment to study Rumplestiltskin and Belle, the beauty and the beast, the hero and the villain, standing beside one another like puzzle pieces that fit. Like they belong together.

A heart and its shell.

And Regina wonders, somewhere deep inside, someplace dark and shut up, locked away where reflections can't reveal it and mirrors can't expose it—wonders if she and Henry look like they belong when they walk together. Or do they look as misshapen, as out of place, as clumsy and stilted as Rumplestiltskin and Lacey?

She doesn't want to know. Right now, she doesn't care, because Henry is gone and urgency and terror coat her skin like a miasma of panicked terror and she needs to move, to lash out, to attack. Right now, Belle doesn't matter, Rumplestiltskin doesn't matter, and certainly ancient lessons to an Evil Queen she doesn't even think exists anymore doesn't matter.

Only Henry. Alive and vibrant and so very necessary to her continued welfare. She cannot breathe without him, cannot take in any air past the sharp teeth catching at her chest, in her throat, pricking tears to sit like heavy, swollen storm clouds behind her eyes.

Henry. Her heart. Taken away. Locked up. Snatched from her and maybe dead.

And it seems that even to the last, Rumplestiltskin is her teacher. Because now, now when he has his heart back and he is whole—and yet broken, too, because his son is dead like hers cannot be—when he could crush her by simply refusing to help…now, she knows what he felt like when she took his heart and told him Belle was dead.

She is always a step behind him, it seems. Always.

But he got his son back, and maybe—no, definitely, she will gets hers back too.

Regina steps onto the boat and does not look back. There's nothing waiting for her behind—not Henry, not the grave of the father she loved and the mother she feared, not a town she once ruled who has now been given to a woman who loves and dreams and hopes in a way Regina hasn't been able to since warm stables turned dark and nightmarish. There's nothing worth anything, except Henry, and he is ahead of her.

Calling her. Waiting for her. Needing her.

Her heart beats in her chest, pulse after steady pulse, leading her onward, onward, onward.

To Henry.

"You can't know what's in a person's heart until you truly know them."