I’m also so hoping that they don’t kill off Belle. Maybe this will be one of those circumstances where they see how much the fans love the Rumbelle storyline and decide to keep it somehow. I think it really depends on how they have decided they want the curse to be broken and whether they already have decided whether there is some other love interest involved with Rumple (please, oh please, not EQ/Regina).
But it sounded like they heard how much the fans liked the storyline and decided to bring Belle back for Season 2 so maybe there is hope. If so I think it will be one of those things that will be strung out over the life of the series and they won’t end up together until the very end of the show – which would be fine with me as long as they end up together. It would be interesting to see how they would deal with the two of them in Storybrooke together. I actually think it would be interesting to see Mr. Gold have to work to win her over since the big complaint about Skin Deep was how quickly they moved from not knowing each other to being in love. It would be cool to have Belle not know who she is and not have any reason to spend time with Mr. Gold so he would have to really work to get her to see who he really is deep down inside to get her to fall in love with him. Let’s face it – that process would probably take several seasons with the way Mr. Gold’s character is. But it would give him a chance to redeem himself for the mistake he made as Rumple when he threw her out but it would still allow him to maintain his same Mr. Gold personality in SB. Then maybe once she fell in love with Mr. Gold for he really was, maybe then she would remember her FTL life and would remember Rumple and would realize that she had just fallen in love with Rumple all over again – that way Mr. Gold would finally know that Belle truely does love him for HIM, regardless of whether he is Rumple or not. And Belle would realize that Rumple is the same person regardless of whether he is green with rotting teeth or not.