One of the more unexpected developments in the latest episode of ABC's Once Upon a Time was Belle (Emilie de Ravin) getting together with Will (Michael Socha), but will they last?

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Rumplestiltskin (Robert Carlyle) bore witness to his former lover apparently moving on with Will during the more recent episode of Once Upon a Time. The show's co-creators said this week that they were hoping to give Belle more strength during the second half of the season.

Once Upon a Time show runners Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about Belle and why she decided to move on.

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"Belle has to be strong, and I think one of the things that happened in that relationship with Rumple is as his lies grew and his betrayals grew, the audience was seeing that Belle was unaware of any of this, and we really wanted to go from the first half of the season of her discovering [the truth] and then letting her act out of strength," Horowitz said. "And now, if they are to have any chance of being together, she has to be a strong person, and what he has to do is difficult."

Don't expect Rumple to take this lying down, however. The villain will do his best to try to potentially win her back.

"You have a man who's lost everything - Belle has moved on, [so] he's going to do his Rumple-est to get it all back," Kitsis said. "The Queens of Darkness think they're working with Rumple, but we all realize, 'You work for Rumple.'"

Horowitz revealed that Rumple will not disappear after the end of the latest episode. "That activates him in a way that starts him on a new quest that he's energized about."

Once Upon a Time airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

Watch the promo for the next episode of Once Upon a Time here:

Tags: Once Upon A Time television ABC