Welcome to the Hellmouth

[with_aprice]

The Slayer was in Storybrooke.  That much the Council had been able to tell him, but beyond that they were of little help.  It was a small town, at least.  There weren't that many teenage girls, and he'd been able to cross some of them off his list just through observations or carefully worded questions he'd asked Belle.  She was a quiet girl, a

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[onceaheroine]

She'd been in the back, going over a shipment of books that Mr. Gold had received from England. Alright, perhaps she'd gotten a little bit distracted over one of the German bestiaries -- Belle had been taking German for two years now, so it was kind of interesting to see how much she could make out of Der Wesen by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. (Those were the names of the folklorists, she'd thought, and hadn't been disappointed to see some pretty fantastical beasts in the book.)

Her reading had been interrupted by the sounds of a struggle and she'd run out with the baseball bat Mr. Gold kept in the back only to find her employer being attacked by a large, deformed man.

"You get away from him!" she'd yelled, swinging hard and connecting with the man's shoulder -- only to be knocked away hard enough to break the nearby chair. Her bat had gone flying and she grabbed part of the broken chair --

And the man had turned to dust.

She stared open-mouthed at Mr. Gold... because that really, really wasn't normal.

"I --

"But --

"Um -- whatHe

[with_aprice]

"That would be the simplest explanation, wouldn't it?" With a hand at the small of her back he guided her to the back room and the ugly chaise lounge that he was never going to be able to sell. He glanced at the area where she'd been working, and was amused to find that Der Wesen was lying open. She was always so curious, his Belle. So unable to resist opening up a book.

His Belle. She was, now. The way she'd moved, the almost effortless strength with which she'd unfailingly staked the vampire in the heart; it was clear just who she was. His Slayer, right under his nose for months now and he hadn't seen it.

"There's no hallucinogens in the book, no trick of the light. You're not dreaming or feverish."

[onceaheroine]

"He turned to dust, Mr. Gold," Belle pointed out, letting herself be guided by his touch. His hand was warm through the thin sweater she was wearing and she'd flush later, thinking about that. Now, she was preoccupied with how completely calm he was being. "He attacked you and then he turned to dust. How can you be calm?"

[with_aprice]

"Because that's hardly the first time I've had a vampire try to kill me or turn me." This one was too young to understand the potential of turning him, though. It's a nightmare that haunts him, that. He suspects it haunts most Watcher.