Yay thank you! I haven’t done one of these before so I hope I do it right, and I seriously love this fic so double thank you 🙂
The prompt for this fic was Light!Gold and Dark!Belle. Gold’s perspective right now, is of someone who has done some things he’s not proud of – he knows what it’s like to make the hard call – but he has clean hands. He has always followed orders, followed protocol. He has been ordered to do some distasteful things, but never anything utterly immoral. He’s a soldier and he’s probably veered close to the line but he’s never crossed it.
Belle crossed it a long time ago. She said earlier in the scene “When
I signed up, I thought I knew what I was getting into. I wanted to help, to
protect and serve – to be a hero.” and then she started rationalizing. At first it was just dirty jobs, and then it started getting more and more wrong but it’s a slippery slope. Once she’d started down that path, she kept telling herself it was for the best, or that she was committed and had to see it through. There were no good choices and she wound up doing things, that she would have vowed never to do when she started.
Gold tries to empathize with her. To say that he gets it, that he made an oath to his nation, that he has always fought for the Frontlands and what he thought was right. Belle shuts him down because while she may have always fought for Avonlea, she knew that she wasn’t fighting for what was right. She knew at the time what she was doing was wrong, but she was in too deep and did it anyway. They aren’t the same and she doesn’t want him to think that they are.
She betrayed him but she learned to shut out her conscience a long time ago. It’s like she repressed it, and now he’s killing her with kindness and understanding. It would be easier if he raged, if he hated her because she hates herself and she knows that she deserves it. She knows that but she doesn’t feel that. She learned to live with it long ago, because she had to and so the choices became easier.
Belle’s not about to break down and wail with guilt because she knows who she is, and what she’s done. She accepts it, and she might wish things had been different, and she might try and be better now. However, what’s done is done and if push came to shove, she’s still capable of almost anything. She might have a few qualms about it, but she’s learned to live with the guilt, push into a box and get on with the job. That coldness is always going to be a part of her, even if miraculously she did manage to build a new life.