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The Trade Off	By : LotornoMiko Category: M through R > Once Upon A Time Views: 5409 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Once Upon A Time fandom. Nor do I make any money off of it or this story.

Chapter List
- 1-The Trade Off
- 2-Two
- 3-Three
- 4-Four
- 5-Five
- 6-Six
- 7-Seven
- 8-Eight
- 9-Nine
- 10-Ten
- 11-Trade 11
- 12-Twelve
- 13-Thirteen
- 14-Fourteen
- 15-Fifteen
- 16-Sixteen
- 17-Seventeen
- 18-Eighteen
- 19-Nineteen
- 20-Twenty
- 21-Twenty One
- 22-Twenty Two
- 23-Twenty Three
- 24-Twenty Four
- 25-Twenty Five
- 26-Twenty Six
- 18
- 19
- 20
For a long time now, for far longer than Belle herself cared to admit to, she had been lying. Making excuses where Rumplestiltskin was concerned, for him and because of him, Belle blinding herself to the facts found all around her. Letting herself think that the end goal justified Rumplestiltskin's misdeeds, Belle trying to excuse the bad behavior that had been repeated again and again. Even when she hadn't understood Rumplestiltskin's reasons why, she had continued to be blind, believing the best in him. Telling herself he was under the Dark One's curse, that love's kiss would break him of it, change him into the good person Belle knew Rumplestiltskin to be.
She had clung to that idea, enduring hardship and imprisonment. Fighting to get back to him, wishing for a way, wanting to find the real him, to save him. Thinking Rumplestiltskin her destiny, and she his. Striving for true love and the happy ending that was guaranteed to those who worked for it.
It had been easy to blame everything on the curse Rumplestiltskin was under. Easy to tell herself he would be a different man if his circumstances were altered. It was easy to believe it oncehe had started isolating her from others, hiding the worst of his misdeeds from her. When she didn't have to clean up his bloodied from torturing others clothing, when she didn't have to hear the stories, see the fear on other people's faces.
Long before Belle learned the true reason behind Rumplestiltskin's every move, Belle had been deluding herself. Living a fantasy born on the kindnesses the man had shown her, the gifts, the closeness, the stimulating conversations. She had seen a man behind the monster that everyone, even her own father, had feared. And no matter what reason Rumplestiltskin used, no matter what lie Belle had told herself about his curse, she still couldn't fully vilify the man now. Let alone outright call him a monster!
Even after all Rumplestiltskin had done, Belle still saw the man behind the power and supposed evils. She still saw the man searching for love, wanting his son at all costs, willing to do just about anything to anyone in order to reunite himself with the boy. Rumplestiltskin loved Baelfire, but it was a pity that that love was hurting others, Belle included!
Baelfire came first to Rumplestiltskin. The boy might always come first, and Belle had tried to accept it. Had even lied to herself that she was okay with it. But she wasn't really. It hurt to know the man she loved just didn't love her enough. Had never loved her enough, not to allow his curse to break, or to forgive her for the sacrifices Belle had made to help him get one step closer to reuniting with his own son.
Already struggling, maybe even jealous of Baelfire, it was all Belle could do to process the horrific truth. A truth where Rumplestiltskin had killed in cold blood his own wife, a woman he had loved enough to have a son with. It was that frightening, inexcusable truth, that had started to break down Belle's own walls, the woman starting to see cracks in every lie and falsehood she had used to make things seem better than they actually were. To make it tolerable what Rumplestiltskin had done and still sometimes did.
Because even now in Storybrooke, he continued to do things, and make half effort lies to her about why. Breaking promises or finding ways around them, keeping things from her. And always she had forgiven him, had even accepted why he had done those things. Belle had kept on believing in him, believing he would try to do better, and always, always giving him just one more chance.
She felt like the fool everyone else must surely think her to be. The saddest thing of all was that she STILL loved him. That Belle still wished things could have been different, that there could have been another way for her to be Rumplestiltskin's destiny. Her heart was breaking that she was not, that it hurt just as badly to have been so wrong about him as it was to be closed off from Rumplestiltskin forever more. It was that, the grief, the frustrations, even the anger, that was powering her heartbreak and tears. Belle was simply too exhausted to fight against the truth, to keep on believing in the best of Rumplestiltskin.
Shaking and crying for something really had broken inside her, Belle leaned into Hook's embrace. His body against hers, became the only support she had, the only reason Belle remained standing. She was vaguely aware of everything else, of his arms wrapping around her, of his hand trying for an awkwardly comforting touch on her hair. Belle just buried her face against his chest and wept, grieving for the love she had wanted, for the future she had hoped for.
And then even that was too much for her, her legs starting to give out as Hook caught and carried her to the bed. Belle clung to him, all but pulling him down besides her on the bed. But it wasn't for anything but a shoddy grasp for human warmth and comfort, Belle needing to curl up against someone, anyone. Hook wouldn't have been her first, or even second choice, but he was there, and that was all that mattered.
For the longest of time they just sat there, Belle dripping her tears against Hook's skin. He kept on petting her hair, speaking softly nonsense that was murmured in an attempt to soothe her. The words didn't matter, just the cadence of his voice in that soothing rhythm. Belle didn't even try to understand, just laid there next to him, until she finally felt in control enough to lift up her face without bawling.
Hook's eyes were immediately on hers, the man giving her a concerned look. He didn't ask her if she was okay, or if Belle felt better now that she had cried out so much. He probably knew that the answer would be no to both questions, because how could Belle be anything, let alone okay, with her heart breaking so completely.
Feeling sick, wishing she could empty out all emotions, Belle fought not to give in to another tidal wave of tears. "Will it ever stop?"
He knew what she meant, Hook pausing long enough to give her question the serious consideration it deserved. "It might. It did for Mila."
"Because she fell in love with you?" Belle asked, but couldn't muster up enough energy to sneer it.
Hook allowed a slight smiling twist of his lips. "Oh no. She was long out of love with Rumplestiltskin when we first encountered each other."
Belle frowned. "But why...how? He wasn't the Dark One then....was he?"
"No he was not. But Rumplestiltskin wasn't a pleasant man even before he gained all that power. He gave Mila plenty of reasons to cry, along with hardship and endless disappointments. It wasn't a happy life she had had with him....hadn't been for a long time."
"Tell me about her." Belle shifted, though didn't stray all that far from the warmth of Hook's body. But rather than lay cradled against his chest, she laid on her side next to him, close enough to touch and be touched if she so chose.
"I wouldn't know where to begin."
"Then tell me about when you first met her. Was it love at first sight for you? For her?" Belle asked.
"Love at first sight?" Hook mused with a glimmer of a smile. "Can't say it was that. It took a great deal more than a few looks. But by the end of the week we knew. Hell, I'd dare say everyone in that bar had to know, what with the way Mila glowed."
"Glowed?" Her brow furrowed, Belle not understanding.
"I suppose you wouldn't know, what with you being royal and all." Hook retorted. That got him another frown from her, Hook chuckling in response. "Oh I know a bit about royals and the nobility. Few if any ever marry for love, or at least they didn't at that time. There was little room for true love when kingdoms were at stake, when wars could be averted by the simple arrangement of a marriage."
Belle sighed. "Now that I am familiar with." But she didn't offer to tell him about Gaston, or how she had been expected to marry the arrogant lordling. A marriage she had been saved from by Rumplestiltskin, but Belle refused to think about that now, knowing she would only start to cry if she did.
"Course...things had changed...or at least started to by the time I came back to the Enchanted Realm. Snow White and her prince had set quite a standard to live up to, what with their love being made possible, and their kingdoms prospering under their rule. Maybe more nobles would have followed in their suit, and gone the true love route over doing their duty."
"A lot of things might have been different if Regina hadn't case her curse." Belle murmured.
"You can't be wondering about what ifs too often." Hook pointed out. "Not when the past is something you can't ever change. I know...." He said, holding up his hand. "It doesn't stop us from wishing otherwise....but there's a lot of grief to be had in thinking too hard about what could have been..."
Belle didn't have to ask, to know Hook was speaking from his own experience. He must have spent a long time wishing things had been different, wishing Mila was still alive, tormenting himself over the future that had been denied to them both.
"So she glowed?" Belle asked out loud, trying to steer the conversation back to her original curiosity.
"Not in the way you might expect. But a woman who has first discovered true love, has a certain...a certain sparkle to her eyes. A smile that lights up her face, a skip to her step. Mila had that with me. And just as I made her glow, I dare say she did the same to me." His smile was wistful, his gaze distant as Hook surely let the memories rise up in his mind.
"MIla was beautiful, and funny, not to mention brave. She knew how to make me laugh, and she did it as often if not more then she turned me on. She wasn't at all afraid of me or my crew, and she loved hearing about our adventures on the high seas. Mila might have been looking for a momentary distraction from the life she had had, but she got that and more when falling into bed with me."
"Now I don't want you to be thinking it was all about the sex." Hook said, his gaze turning focused and directed towards Belle. But he was smirking, downright playful as he teased her. "As good as I am, lovemaking alone is not enough to make a woman glow with love." He laughed in response to Belle's annoyed look. "But we found we were compatible in and out of bed, and with Mila craving a change to her life, she was more than eager to run away with me. And she took to the sea like a fish born in it, never a more fierce pirate lass than she. The life suited her, I suited her, and together we were magic."
"And during that time, Rumplestiltskin became the Dark One?" In an instant Hook lost his smile, giving her a stiff nod.
"Oh we heard all about him, and the trouble he was making. It was only a handful of years, and already he had quite the reputation. First for terrorizing his village and the ones that surrounded it, and then abruptly, he began doing more with his power. Using it to manipulate and control people, to chart the fall and ruin of kingdoms. No one, let alone Mila, could guess as to why he was doing it. We didn't even know he had lost their son, or that Baelfire being gone was the catalyst to the change in Rumplestiltskin. We just knew enough to avoid him."
"Only the desperate would seek him out." Belle murmured, remembering her father and how desperate he had been to save their kingdom from the ogres. How he had been willing to do just about anything, except give his daughter over to the Dark One. And yet that had been exactly the price Rumplestiltskin had demanded, a sacrifice Belle had been willing to make, if only to be a hero to her people.
"Only the desperate indeed." Hook agreed. "We were lucky to have avoided him for as long as we did. But all luck runs out eventually..." His look was dark then, Belle shivering in response to it.
"In one day I lost my hand, the woman that was my whole life, and nearly my whole crew." Hook continued with a growl. "If we hadn't had a way to escape where even Rumplestiltskin could not follow....well we would all have been dead at his hands."
"Why?" Belle was wide eyed and shivering. "Because Mila had left him for you? He would have killed your whole crew to punish her for loving another?"
"He would have slaughtered us all for the last trick played on him. My Mila was cunning, and she made him think he had what he was after. I may have lost my hand for the deception, but it was worth it to get a laugh on him." But Hook wasn't laughing now. "He's an evil, evil man....seeing people as things, as possessions and things to manipulate. I thought it all a greedy need for further power, but even knowing he had a better reason, his son, doesn't excuse him in my eyes. Nor should it in yours!"
Hook was practically glaring at her now, the blue of his eyes a dark blaze of bold color that flashed with his anger. The anger wasn't truly directed at Belle, Hook's frustration, his rage, and the helplessness he must have felt at failing to save Mila from Rumplestiltskin's last cruelty being stirred up by memories. By a hurt that had never properly healed, that apparently tore open time and time again, Hook tormented by his past, and most of all his loss.
Belle couldn't imagine living for any length of time with that kind of anger and pain, already so exhausted from the last two days of her own ordeals. It was an exhaustion that lingered, that only grew worse, as did her own sadness and frustrations, and even anger, as her heart broke not once but twice with the realizations that she had been wrong about Rumplestiltskin. But even knowing that didn't make the love go away, the heart felt emotion something that wouldn't be vanquished that easily. Belle's love had been true, even if everything else of her time with Rumplestiltskin had been not, the woman's own feelings strong enough that it had overlooked so much in the course of her relationship with him.
Hook was still staring at her, that fierce, angry look in his eyes mellowing somewhat as Belle began to look away. She thought herself quick enough to keep him from reading the emotion on her face, but in the split second it took her to process her own thoughts and to turn away, he had seen something to appease him.
His hook was suddenly there, the blunt curve of it under her chin, insistently raising her head up so that the pirate could study her eyes. Belle fought the resentment inside her, the feelings that whispered to her that everything could have continued as it had been, that she and Rumplestiltskin could have been happy together if not for Hook's interference. But just as that feeling whispered, another also spoke. The whisper that asked if she would really have been happy, continuing to live a life that came on the foundation of lies and ignoring the truths around her.
Sick because she didn't want to acknowledge the truth of her heart, Belle all but scowled at Hook. The glower she wore didn't have the desired effect, the pirate's lips holding the slightest approving quiver to them, as though he was holding back a laugh, or at the very least a smile.
Her look became one of pure resentment, Belle hating the truth, and hating just who had broken it to her and how. It left her struggling, and far from a total acceptance, Belle wanting to delude herself that things could have, should have, remained the same. She looked at Hook and could not be grateful to him for turning her world upside down. She still wanted to cling to the familiar, to the man she still loved whole heartedly, to the world, to the life they had had together even if it wasn't healthy or sane or safe.
Wanting the familiar, the comforting, Belle yearning for the love that even Rumplestiltskin hadn't been able to give her, she jerked away from the pirate. She heard him say her name, an inquisitive lilt to the end of it, but Belle didn't bother to acknowledge him. A deep breath followed, as did the sound of the bed creaking as Hook moved off it.
"There's something you need to see." He said, and it wouldn't have been enough to rouse Belle's curiosity, if not for the words that followed. "Though you're still a world away from accepting it and the truth it holds."
"The truth?" Belle couldn't help but sound suspicious. "The truth about what?"
"About every little thing you've been wondering about since learning Rumplestiltskin once had a wife." answered Hook. "The hows and the whys, and especially the who."
"And I'm just supposed to believe anything you tell me?" Demanded Belle, with a deep scoffing breath that died of with a gasp at Hook's next words.
"Not me, but Mila." He said in all seriousness. "She's the only one who might be able to give you a somewhat unbiased account of her life, her decisions, and the men who loved enough to kill over her."
The idea left her stunned, and that was good. Because her shock was the only thing that kept Belle from saying something foolish, from pointing out that Mila was dead, and unable to speak anything, let alone the truth. Belle would still be standing there with that wide eyed look of shock, when Hook threw out one last challenge to her.
"But if you're too scared of the truth to come see...."
Her chin lifted, Belle giving him her best glare. "I've faced down monsters, and even an Evil Queen. There's little left to frighten me." But she was lying through her teeth, Belle fearing the truth. Fearing what new and unwanted facets of Rumplestiltskin and his past with Mila might stand revealed to her, and the effect it could have on her love and a heart that was already broken.
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To Be Continued...
Well this one got written a little faster. Almost had it ready almost two days ago, actually got the first 13 kb written. But then real life and a headache got in the way, not to mention I started over thinking, overstressing, worrying, doubting everything I had written of the first 16 kb. For the most part I like it, even though it kinda veered off path. Mainly I thought Hook and Belle would be arguing about Rumplestiltskin, but the way the chapter developed and flowed....well I went with it, and got to my ending point I wanted anyway! Yay!
So yeah....when I rearranged some things because of last chapter and the delayed time skip, I realized I did have a set up for Belle to get the diary. Originally I was thinking she'd have to sneakily break in to the chest, and read it on the sly. But I like this last minute change, where Hook lends it to her better.
Oh! I almost forgot. Actually I did, but Zerousy comment in the review section reminded me. Like a month or so ago I made a Once Upon A time website. It's my third wordpress site, and it's called Hooked On You. It has both my Hook Belle AND my Hook Emma stories, along with a very small section of fan art. Except for the fanart, everything else is the same amount of chapters as this fanfic site. (Actually this site gets the chapter updates first over the wordpress site. XD)
Also, I tried to limit how much Hook said about Mila since I wanted to leave some of it for the diary bits. But we'll see how that goes. Right now I'm thinking Belle won't have the nerve to read it, cause she's scared of what will stand revealed. But I have this moment in my head, where she learns Hooks' real name....though I wonder if it will read funny when I get around to writing it out. (In other words, she's reading the diary, and just kinda goes loudly, "KILLIAN?!" Like she can't believe the name, or finds it funny. XD)
I'm actually hopeful that...okay I want to start the next chapter with them getting that chest open and her being presented with the diary. But then if that doesn't take too much space, to ease into the time skip at long last. Keep your fingers crossed for me! XD

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---Michelle
- 18
- 19
- 20
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The Trade Off