Beautiful Lily

Unexpected apology

Belle spent a good portion of her morning walking around the library with a clipboard in her hands documenting all books. Section by section, she looked at each individual book. As if with a fine-toothed comb, she carefully wrote down book titles distinguishing the ones native and foreign to this land. Although the task was arduous and monotonous, she found it quite exciting. So she hung about the library's giant catalog and went through each card. It was fairly easy to distinguish between the two kinds of books; the Storybrooke books had very thorough information like published dates, publishers and author names. Unlike the books from their land which had little to no information to their accreditation besides the author's name.

It was another peaceful morning at the library until Belle heard the library doors open. She paused her task and wondered what time it was. She looked at the library's clock that was hanging on the wall beside her.

10:37 a.m.

It's way too early for Rumple to be meeting me for lunch, she thought. So she concluded that it had to be another citizen from the community genuinely interested in checking out a book. She quickly set down the clipboard on top of the catalog's metal drawers and excitedly walked over to the person who entered the establishment.

"Belle?" shouted a woman's voice. Belle headed down an aisle and rounded a bookshelf to discover Emma Swan by the circulation desk.

"Emma," Belle said with surprise. "I don't suppose you're here to check out a book?"

"Not exactly," she replied with a serious look on her face. Belle never considered herself an expert on reading body language, but she could tell that there was something else on her mind. "Mary... Mom... said that you were handing out flyers for your book club."

"Are you planning on coming?" Belle said excitedly as she ran behind the front desk to her pile of extra flyers.

"I'm thinking about it. However, when you're sheriff you don't exactly get a day off."

"Ah, I understand. Well, Sheriff, I think you're doing a fine job."

"Thank you," Emma said with a weighted sigh, "It's a thankless job, that's for sure. Oh! I never got a chance to congratulate you on your marriage. Congratulations."

"Thank you," said Belle, blushing a little bit. She moved a couple books on her desk, and upon finding the pile of flyers handed over one of the copies to Emma.

"Hold on to it. In fact, bring the copies with you."

"I'm sorry, are we going somewhere?" Belle asked confused.

"There's a person I want you to meet down at the Sheriff Station. You can post some flyers up along the way there."

"Oh, ok," replied Belle, finding Emma's request to the station a bit cryptic. However strange the request was, Belle trusted Emma and consented to go with her. For all Belle knew, it could have been someone from her past that was still searching for her, "uh, let me just grab my things and lock up the library and we can get going."

Belle hastily grabbed her keys, threw some tape into her pocket and with the pile of flyers in her arm, they both exited the library's doors. After a few minutes of walking in silence, Belle realized that there weren't really many occasions where she was one-on-one with Emma. She thought about the rough interactions they had shared in the past, and although their relationship to each other had gotten off to a bad start she was willing to let bygones be bygones out of respect for the one person they had both cared about... Neal.

Belle reflected on her time spent in the Enchanted Forest with Neal. She mourned briefly over the time lost to Emma and Neal due to Zelena. Belle understood the feeling all too well; of seeing your loved one sacrifice himself to save you. It was an indescribable feeling and something Belle didn't wish upon anybody, even her worst enemy. And with all the commotion of what happened with Elsa, it made her wonder how she even arrived in Storybrooke to begin with. With the town resuming 'normal' activities, Belle assumed that Emma knew of Elsa's current whereabouts. After all, Emma was Storybrooke's Sheriff. It would have been very negligent of Emma if she wasn't kept apprised of the town's safety, especially if Elsa lurked around town.