Chapter 6

*Indianapolis, Indiana*
*Indianapolis PD*
*An Interrogation Room*

"He raped you." Gold repeated softly.

Belle nodded, fresh tears rolling down her face.

Gold gently stroked her cheek, then pulled it away. He turned around, and laid the front of his face into the wall.

How could he be hearing any of this? He used to consider his brother to be his best friend. How could he have changed so much? How could he have hurt a woman that Gold already cared for so much? How could he have hurt any woman that way?

Belle stared at Gold's back, and could see his shoulders shaking slightly. She realized he was crying. She slowly walked over to him, and took his hand in hers. He immediately squeezed her hand back.

"I'm sorry." Gold said softly, the emotion could be heard in his voice. "I'm so sorry, Belle." He took his hand that was free, and roughly wiped the tears from his face, and he turned to face her, his hand never leaving hers. "I'm so damn sorry, sweetheart."

"It wasn't your fault, Nick, I'm sorry." Belle whispered, hating that he was so upset. She knew he was upset for her, but she didn't want that. It wasn't his fault, and she was afraid that he blamed himself.

"Don't." Gold replied, as he turned around and faced her. "Please, don't apologize to me for any of this. It's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. I can assure you of that. My brother is the one who did something wrong, and I am so ashamed to even call him that right now, even in his death." He ran a hand over his face, as he brushed his stray tears away. "I am so sorry, Belle." He got choked up again, as he cut himself off.

"For what, Nick?" Belle asked softly, not understanding what this wonderful man could possibly be apologizing to her for.

"For what you had to endure. For all of it." Gold replied. "That must've been a nightmare."

"It was." Belle admitted. "The beginning of a very long nightmare that has never completely gone away for me."

"I should've done more. I should've gone after him," Gold whispered.

"And what would you have done?" Belle asked him.

"If I'd known he was hurting you, or anybody like that...I would've kicked his ass, and then made him get some damn help." Gold leaned back against the wall.

"I used to tell myself that too." Belle said softly.

Gold lifted his head to look at her, startled by her voice.

"I used to tell myself that if I'd realized before he got so...violent with me, that maybe I could've saved him. Maybe I could've convinced him to go into therapy." Belle admitted. "The truth is, Nick...I was just as screwed up as he was."

"Why? Because you wanted to believe he could love you? Because you wanted to believe that love could be enough?" Gold shook his head. "That's not being screwed up, dearie that's being human."

"I came from a..." She stopped. "What am I doing? This isn't about me. This is about him. What else, do you want me to tell you?"

Gold let go of her hand, and walked over to the table, he took the tape-recorder and turned it off.

"What are you doing, Nick?" Belle asked him confused.

"You were wrong before." Gold said. "You said that your feelings don't matter, and maybe they don't to the investigation...they do to me. I want you to tell me everything. This isn't just about him, this is about you too."

"I...uh...I..." Belle walked over to the table and sat down in the chair. "What I was going to say before was that, I came from an abusive home, Nick."

Gold sat down in a chair beside her, and took her hand in his gently, letting her know that he was there for her.

"Although it was nothing near to the hell that your brother put me through, it was still abusive. It was verbally abusive. I told you that my parents said I was their greatest disappointment, and while they said that to me on more than one occasion, it wasn't the worst thing they ever said to me. Nothing I did was right for them. And when you go through your whole life, with people telling you...people that are supposed to love you unconditionally telling you that you're ugly, you're stupid, and I don't love you, never have, never will. Well, it sends you on a desperate search." Belle explained. "It leads you on a search to find somebody who doesn't think those things about you. It's what lead me to Killian, and it's what made me stay with him for so long."

"Because you wanted to believe that you could make somebody love you." Gold realized sadly.

Gold could've believe she'd had such cruel, selfish parents. He couldn't believe how awful of a life she'd really had.

"I wanted to believe that I could change Killian. In the beginning, I believed that he loved me, and maybe he did, Nick. Maybe he really did love me at one time, I don't know. All I do know is that when he started drinking, and getting into drugs...all of that stopped. The way that he used to be with me, it stopped. The love that he used to show me was replaced with violence." Belle said. "I thought that if I could just hang in there, and keep being patient and just keep telling him how much I loved him, then he'd come back. Then everything would be okay, and we'd get married and be happy."

"He never did come back though did he, dearie?" Gold asked softly.

Belle shook her head. "No, he never did."

"What happened after that, Belle?" Gold asked her. "After he forced you to..." It hurt him to even repeat the words, to even repeat what had been done to her. "to perform oral sex on him...what happened after that?" And when he realized Belle was ready to talk more about it, he turned the recorder back on.

"He mentioned something about needing beer, and he left." Belle replied. "After he left, I went upstairs, and I packed a bag. I put a few things in it. Just necessary things, ya know?"

Gold nodded. "You were going to leave him?"

"Yeah" Belle nodded, tears in her eyes. "That was just like a wake up call. After he did it, I was crying, and crying, and none of it even phased him. He got up, and said he needed beer!" Belle yelled, with a bitter laugh. "Beer!"

Gold just shook his head, he couldn't believe what kind of man he was hearing about. It made him sick.

"I called Snow, and I told her I needed some time away. So, she said that I could stay with her." Belle explained. "I left. I got out of there before he came back."

"Did he ever call you again after that, Belle?" Gold asked, as he took a seat at the table in the interrogation room, and she took the seat across from him like before. "Was that the last of it?"

"No," Belle almost laughed at that, not out of amusement, but just out of bitterness. "he was furious. Killian...well, at least the Killian that I knew...the one he became...he wasn't one for calling. He just kinda barged in. He was angry. He just kept pounding on the door, yelling...yelling all sorts of obscenities. When the anger clearly wasn't working, he took up another tactic. He started crying. He was crying, saying he was sorry, and that he loved me. He cried that if I would just give him one more chance, things would be so different."

"Did you give him another chance, Belle?" Gold was hoping for her sake, the answer would be no, but he had a feeling that it wouldn't be.

"Against my better judgement, yes." Belle replied. "Hell, against Snow, and James's wishes, I gave him another chance. Everyone told me not to. I told me not to. He sounded so sincere, and in those few minutes, it was like the man I fell in love with was back. I needed for that to be true so much."

"Even with what he had done to you?" Gold couldn't understand this logic at all. Killian was already dead, and he wanted to kill him for what he'd done to her. He just couldn't understand how she give him another chance after that. Why she'd even want to. "Sweetheart, he hurt you, and he didn't even care. I don't understand why you'd even want to try again with him."

"Killian was the only person who'd ever told me that he loved me. Deep down, I was afraid that he was the best that I could do." Belle admitted. "I know that won't make any sense to you, but you didn't have my life, Nick. You don't know what my life was like, what any of it was like."

"No, I suppose I don't." Gold conceded. "So, you gave him another chance. Then, what? Did he benefit from this second chance, Belle? Did he prove to you that he was worth it?"

"No," Belle shook her head. "just the opposite."

"He hurt you again? He hit you, rape you? What?" Gold was growing tired. He wasn't upset with her by any means, he was just tired of hearing of this person that his brother had become. It was taking it's toll on him.

"He hit me a lot of times." Belle replied. "He...I guess he raped me a few times."

Gold's head snapped up. "You guess?"

"It would get confusing. He'd make me feel obligated...and I'd feel like I had to. And sometimes, he'd get so mean if I said no, that I'd get scared, and just...let him. And,"

"Okay, I'm gonna stop you, Belle." Gold interrupted her. "The obligated part...that's called manipulation. If you didn't want to, than it's emotional rape if nothing else, and it's still wrong. And if when he got mean, if you mean violent towards you, where you were scared that he would hurt you, than that is rape, Belle. All of it is. All of it is wrong. Did you say no during any of it when you didn't want to?"

"Yeah, but that'd just make him even more angry, and it was already getting harder and harder to explain away the bruises when Snow would ask." Belle replied.

"How long did this second chance last?" Gold asked. "Did you leave again? Did...something else happen?"

"I left." Belle replied. "When I left, it was for good. James and Snow kind of did an intervention with me. They got me alone, and they made me see that all of this was wrong. I told them, that I had to go back, and end it officially. The last time, I ran Nick. I ran, and he found me, and I believed his lies and went back with him. I couldn't let that happen this time. I had to do it myself. I had to be firm with it."

"Okay, so when you went back to call it quits with Killian...did you go alone?" Gold asked her.

"Yes." Belle replied.

"Were you afraid? Did you realize that going back by yourself could've possibly gotten you killed?" Gold asked her.

"I realized that too." Belle said. "I also realized that if I was ever going to get anything of my life back before Killian, than I had to do it myself. I thought maybe I'd respect myself more, maybe he'd even respect me or something. It didn't go that way at all though. I told him I was done, that I was never going to be with him again, never gonna go back to him. I explained to him how he made me feel, and how I honestly didn't love him anymore. I told him that he had killed all the love that I had ever had for him. He raised his hand like he was going to hit me, but than stopped. I told him that if he would've shown that much restraint during the other parts of our relationship, and hadn't done the things to me that he'd done that maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation. He just shook his head, and he looked at me. For the first time I didn't see any illusions, Nick. I didn't see any of what I wanted to see. I saw Killian. The real Killian...maybe I was seeing the Killian that there was all along, I don't know. But I saw him so clearly. He looked at me, and he said 'you will regret this. No one will ever love you, but me'."

"You left, just like that?" Gold asked. "He didn't try to stop you in any way?"

"No." Belle replied. "I could tell that he was angry though. I didn't say another word, I just grabbed my suitcase, and I left. I left him. I went to Snow's."

"You never went back to him after that?" Gold asked.

"No, never. I was serious, when I told him that I was never going to be with him again. I meant that, and I never went back on it." Belle declared.

"Okay..." Gold was still sort of confused. His brother was dead. He still needed answers about that, and he still believed that Belle knew them. "Look, dearie...if I'm gonna help you, than you are gonna have to be straight with me."

"I have been, Nick." Belle replied, surprised and hurt that he might've thought she was making any of this up. "Everything I've told you is the god's honest truth. I haven't lied."

"I believe you, Belle. I also believe that there is something that you are not telling me." Gold said. "I need you to tell me what it is. For your own good."

"You believe that I know who killed your brother, right?" Belle asked. This was going to be the hardest part of all. Explaining that awful night to Nick.

"I do, Belle." Gold affirmed.

"You're right." Belle said. "I do know who killed your brother."

"Who did it, Belle?" Gold asked her gently. "Just give me a name, and we'll work all of this out. I promise you."

Belle nodded her head, not planning on holding him to that promise since she knew it was gonna be nol and void, after she told him everything else. "It was me, Nick."

Gold lifted his head, and looked at her in complete shock. "What?"

"I did it, Nick. I killed your brother. It was me."