A/N: Thanks to darkmasterplan for the prompt. It's not my usual type of story and it definitely cause me some frustrating moments of writer's block/I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing, but it was good to be forced to stretch outside my comfort zone a bit. Hopefully, Maleficent comes across as somewhat in-character - it's difficult to write for characters I don't know as well! Hope you all enjoy, and I'd love to hear what you think of it!
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended.
Implications
It had taken a dozen glimpses of the chaotic future, three decades of waiting, a handful of odd deals to rearrange the board as needed, and the expenditure of enough magic to confuse the herd directly after the birth, but Rumplestiltskin was now the owner of a unicorn foal—and not just any unicorn foal, but the proud and unique progeny of miniature ebony unicorns, the likes of which were produced only every three decades or more depending on the amount of fairy dust in the air. A lot of effort, a lot of time, a lot of magic, and yet now, watching Belle giggle at the feel of the tiny foal nuzzling against her hand, Rumplestiltskin found himself seriously considering giving up the whole idea of buying a favor from the purple witch and just letting Belle keep the thing.
Belle. His caretaker, he reminded himself, flattening his lips to banish the sneaky smile forming without his permission. His maid. The princess with more bravery than importance, more nobility than use, more beauty than magic, and altogether too good for him or any connived, tricked gift he might give her. She wasn't in any vision of the years-yet-to-come, and therefore she couldn't help him get to a land without magic.
Maleficent, however, could—or rather, her raven and her cobbled-together method of talking to it in a manner similar to Snow White's would help ensure his curse was cast. In order for Snow and her prince to seek him out, for Regina to feel pressured into delivering something bigger and badder and so much more impressive than anything she'd yet done, all the birds and insects and assorted other creatures needed to be abuzz with the horrible news of a fateful curse that would destroy everyone's happy endings. Maleficent's raven could start those rumors, could add another pebble to the avalanche Rumplestiltskin was so carefully, painstakingly building, and so it was Maleficent, not Belle, who would get to have the precious unicorn as a pet.
Even if Belle cried, Rumplestiltskin told himself sternly, she didn't get to keep the magical creature currently prancing around her ankles with a shrill whinny that made her laugh and clap her hands together.
"Rumplestiltskin!" Belle called, finally catching sight of him.
Ignoring the tremor that passed through him at the sound of his name on her lips—spoken so invitingly, happy and laughing—he stepped out of the shadows with a skip that mimicked the prance of the foal now hiding fearfully behind her skirts. It, at least, recognized him for the beast he was.
"Haven't gotten tired of taking care of yet another creature, I hope," Rumplestiltskin observed with his habitual disdain flecked throughout his tone—better disdain than the fear he had begun to feel more and more often in his maid's presence.
Belle slanted him that look she'd been bestowing on him with increasing frequency, that half-amused, half-exasperated expression she flashed him whenever she disagreed with him but chose not to argue her point. Wise, that, seeing as how the expression itself—given so fearlessly to the Dark One himself—said more than any argument ever could, and it was oh so eloquently conveyed through diamond-sharp eyes and star-bright smiles and flashing dimples.
"I don't think I could ever get tired of him," Belle finally said, but she looked at him an instant too long, waited a moment more than necessary to bend and run a caressing hand down the unicorn's back. It left Rumplestiltskin wondering, as he should know better than to do anymore, just what she was trying to tell him, what she might mean with that pointed look, that telling hesitation. If she meant anything at all more than what she actually said, he reminded himself forcibly. She was an innocent, idealistic young woman, after all, not an old, bitter showman used to manipulating and playing games with marked expressions and twisted words. She didn't convey messages through pointed looks or pass on codes with the words she said and the truths she didn't, and she certainly didn't have any messages for him—her captor. She was a beauty and he was a beast. There weren't any hidden meanings or secret affections beyond these roles they each played, and he wished he could remember that and stop hoping for the impossible.
"You'd sing a different tune were you to have to clean up after his messes!" Rumplestiltskin trilled. He hardly knew what he was saying, only paid enough attention to make sure that his voice was high-pitched and shrill, just enough of an unnatural sound to make people uncomfortable, just human enough to pause those who thought him to be only an otherworldly creature. The fringes, that was what he delighted in, the part he'd played for centuries, the role he had to quickly refamiliarize himself with before Maleficent arrived. It was almost frightening, really, to realize just how far he'd let the façade slip during these past winter months with Belle.
Belle smiled at him, though, as if his voice were normal. As if it were something to be fond of. As if it weren't the voice that had demanded she leave her home forever. "Loving a thing means being willing to put in the work they need," she said, sternly, as if lecturing him on the proper care of creatures. And maybe she was. It wasn't as if there were any other living beings besides himself and her in the Dark Castle. Only for Belle had Rumplestiltskin been so utterly cruel as to force her to live with the monster.
Rumplestiltskin narrowed his eyes, his hands clenching into fists at his side as Belle leaned down to coo over the foal still hiding behind her. "Ponies," he said condescendingly—two could play the lecturing game, after all, and maybe he didn't have animals living here, but he was older than she knew and had seen more of life than she even realized existed outside of her books, "are more trouble than they're worth." He had already started forming the next word, already opened his mouth and taken a breath to tell her that sheepdogs, however, were so much better, useful, friendly, clean animals that could help provide for a family, keep a ramshackle house warm, and snuggle next to a small boy missing a mother or a lonely spinner trying so hard to cling to hope even when there seemed so little cause for it—he'd already begun to reveal this little secret of the man he'd once been so long ago, when he realized just how low his voice had dropped. No longer the showman's trill, it was almost a normal man's register, an ordinary man letting loose his own opinion, revealing secrets as if they couldn't hurt him.
But he knew better than that, didn't he? It had been mere decades since he'd let slip secrets like the existence of a son and the past life of a spinner and the truth of the legend behind the Dark One. Mere decades since he'd been betrayed and had watched as the woman who'd tricked him turned fully against him, moving her own pieces and pretending as if she could make the world he'd been arranging for the past three-hundred years into a chessboard all her own. And it had only been the big things he'd revealed to Cora, only the largest, most blatant secrets, the ones that formed him into who and what he was, that motivated him and pushed him and demanded his obsession.
But Belle didn't want the big secrets, didn't pull bold, blatant confidences from him through force or guile or subterfuge. Instead, her presence, so laughing and bright and brave, invited tiny pieces of seemingly innocuous information, a snippet here and a whisper there, his favorite foods over dinnertime and his preferences in clothing over teatime, his beloved stories or jokes while he spun and she dusted or the feelings he'd pretended for so long he'd buried under darkness and calculated mayhem. She dusted him as surely as she dusted the Dark Castle, swept out his dark interior and opened the shutters to glaring sunlight, and in return he gave her all his small, personal secrets, the ones she made him remember and claim once more, the little details that taken altogether meant more, oh so much more, than the big, dangerous secrets. After all, he was the deal-maker, the word-spinner, so he above all knew just how deadly, how important, how crucial the little things—the small weapons—could be.
So he closed his mouth over his comment on dogs, his secret that he loved dogs and had thought about having one many times during his long years of being alone but had never quite managed it because dogs loved no matter what their owners did and he above all didn't deserve unconditional love like that. He closed his mouth and loosened his fists and pulled out a cold smirk, as if the conversation were beneath him. Better to leave it far behind, lost and forgotten, a single moment among a thousand, because better to not take advantage of her smiles than to let himself think on the implications of his wish, his growing desire,to give all his secrets over to her.
Belle watched him for a moment, the silence cloaking them both. She waited, as if she knew he had more to say, before she gave him an almost sad smile and the suggestion of a nod. "Maybe they are trouble," she said softly, and he almost started, because she didn't sound as if she were talking about a pony. "But I think love is worth anything."
"Good thing this pony won't be around long enough for you to love, then," he pronounced, and spun around to start back toward the hall. "I'm expecting a guest any moment now, and she'll be taking the foal with her when she leaves, so best have it fed and watered before then. Tea on the table for two, please."
"A guest?" Belle's voice was startled, and he didn't need to look behind him to know that her eyes were wide and entranced, her mouth beginning to curve into a smile. "I've never seen a guest here before."
"I didn't invite anyone until now," he said, and then had to bite back a curse, because even though his remark was sharp enough to be a retort, it was once more lower, deeper—more sincere—than he should be speaking. An annoyance, he tried to convince himself—but couldn't, because it wasn't annoying, it was frightening. Belle made him forget that he was the Rumplestiltskin of legend and story. She made him forget his armor and his weapons and his obsessions. And yet, at the same time, she made it impossible to forget even for a single evening that he was a monster, a beast, a killer a hundred—a thousand—times over, a creature who had once been a man before he'd slathered his hands in blood and lost his soul in a curse and a green portal. She made him remember what it was to be human, but was living, breathing proof of just inhumane he was, and he hated the contradiction. He did. Really, truly, he did. It was easier, after all, to hate goodness than to try to embrace it and be burned for his efforts.
"She?" Belle repeated, oblivious to his thoughts. As much of humanity's contradictions as he had seen, it was still positively baffling how she could so often seem to know what he was thinking and feeling and then other times be so clueless. "A woman? Is she…is she like you?"
At that, Rumplestiltskin had to laugh. "Oh, Belle," he said, and tried to ignore how good her name felt on his tongue. "There is no one like me."
That seemed a suitable line on which to make his exit, so he strode quickly toward the doors leading from the stables to the interior of the castle. And he pretended—as he was growing so good at doing lately—that he didn't hear her murmur, "Now that I believe."
He had a witch's arrival to prepare for, he reminded himself—and realizing that he was making a habit of reminding himself of things he should already know, and that was Belle's fault, too, since she was far too distracting. A witch's arrival, a part to remember how to play, a deal to make. A step toward his son to complete, and even with Belle here, that wasn't something he ever forgot was important. With his son in mind and his pieces almost all in place, he didn't have time to think of his maid and soften and wonder all manner of madness.
Bae was close, and for that, and that alone, he could be Rumplestiltskin for a little while longer—Rumplestiltskin the Dark One, not Rumplestiltskin the father, the failure, the coward. Or, well, he was still Rumplestiltskin the coward, even now with all his power and deals and unicorn foals and princess-turned-maid; he would always be Rumplestiltskin the coward no matter what he did. And if that didn't convince him that Belle was far beyond him, even as a noble servant, then nothing would.
Funny, though, he couldn't help but muse, that the Dark Castle had seemed like a fitting home for the Dark One with its shadowy corridors and grisly collection, but now, with the curtains all opened and the floors all swept and flowers in vases on every tabletop and empty pedestal, it seemed like the perfect home for Belle, too. Odd, that, the disparity in their beings and the sameness of the place they resided in. But then, he knew how well his own mind played tricks on him, particularly when he wanted something. This would never be Belle's home, after all. Only her prison. And he would never be anything but her captor. He knew those things without doubt—so why did he still, against all the odds, hope?
He didn't know. It was just what he always did, so much so that he'd long since learned his lesson. Hope was every bit his failing just as much as cowardice was, and disappointment as much his weakness as the dagger. The man and the monster, all mixed up together until even he couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. And that, he thought, would make it easy to remember the role he needed to play for Maleficent.
With a flourish of his hand that no one could see, he magicked himself into his hall where Maleficent would soon appear, and his smile was broken and sneering enough to fit his portrayal as the lunatic Dark One.
Although, he thought with an inward sigh, Belle's smiling, more mundane entrance in the next moment probably ruined the effect. But as with so many things concerning Belle, Rumplestiltskin couldn't bring himself to really mind.
Maleficent prided herself on her composure. Every villain had to have a trademark, after all—Regina had her mirrors and her ostentation, Jefferson his hats and eccentricities, Ursula her eels and her potions, and of course Rumplestiltskin's penchant for making deals in his own maniacal way was well known—so Maleficent, wanting to keep her ability to shapeshift into a dragon a trick to pull out of her sleeve when least expected, had long since chosen elegance and poise as her own signature. She took great care to greet everything that happened, every setback or triumph, every defeat or victory, with the same smooth smile and quirk of a golden brow. But that ability, practiced as it was, was strained and almost broken completely when she entered the Dark One's domain to see a young pretty girl serving tea with a smile and a pointed look slanted to Rumplestiltskin out of the corner of her eye.
The world seemed to shift, and if grace weren't such a habit, Maleficent would have surely dropped her staff or gaped at the sight. Frantically, she began to recalculate her plans—her understanding of the world—in her head. Her hands didn't shake as she reached out to take the cup from the girl, who peered at her politely but curiously, and her affected calm didn't shatter when she nodded to whatever sarcastic greeting Rumplestiltskin gave her with a wave of his hand as he stalked around the room with all his usual flamboyance—but inside, where no one could see, Maleficent was worried.
Rumplestiltskin was a tricky opponent, someone Maleficent had been careful to stay well clear of whenever possible. No need to get embroiled in messy deals or contracts—but at the same time, she had liked the feeling of knowing the possibility was there. And she had liked the idea that she knew Rumplestiltskin's ways well enough to negotiate at least a passably acceptable deal. Now, however…now she wasn't so sure.
Everyone knew Rumplestiltskin didn't prey on women or make deals with only carnality in mind. It was widely speculated that he was so old he no longer attached himself to the human race at all, and as such, everyone was certain that he didn't feel emotions, or at least didn't feel any that any mortal could understand. Everyone also knew that deals were his sole source of pleasure, his only interest, and that magic demanded the whole of his attention and whatever passed for a heart in his old shriveled chest. But Maleficent had also trained herself to keen observation, and it took only instants of watching the woman—a maid of some sort, it seemed—serve Rumplestiltskin his tea, with the flicker of an almost kind smile and not a trace of fear at all, to see Rumplestiltskin pause his choreographed movements and still and quiet to take the cup, his expressions softening almost imperceptibly, for Maleficent to realize that 'everyone' was wrong.
Rumplestiltskin could feel, and he could love, and magic did not possess his attention in the least at the moment, and he certainly wasn't so unattached to the human race that he didn't feel something for the girl in blue who slipped yet another look—filled with conversations Maleficent couldn't read—to Rumplestiltskin, who had ever and always been the master of conveying whole messages through the merest facial tick.
So…Maleficent took a slow sip of her mint and cream tea and tried to remember if she had ever heard of any spell or potion, any curse or blessing, that could make a woman think she was in love with a monster. It was said to be impossible, but this was Rumplestiltskin and he had been, presumably, alone a very long time, surely long enough to come up with some new kind of potion. Maleficent wouldn't put anything past him, not when he had power, immortality, and a dangerous cunning on his side. It always amazed her that Regina thought Rumplestiltskin to be an ally she could work with or a foe she could forget so long as it suited her, particularly when even the witches and sorcerers of their realms knew to be wary of the imp. But then, Regina was young and foolish; she would learn, eventually, that caution and pragmatism were virtues to be cultivated.
Or perhaps not, if Rumplestiltskin's current lovesick state was anything to go by, because he was certainly old enough to know better.
"Plotting hard?" Rumplestiltskin's sneering question jolted her from her thoughts, and Maleficent set her teacup down on the table to prevent him from seeing the minute shaking of her hands in the ripples along the liquid's surface. Rumplestiltskin kept hold of his own teacup, though, and she noticed that there was a chip along the rim of it. The oddness of the irregularity, surrounded by opulence and wealth of an extent noticeable in full only to those who wielded magic, drew her eye. It commanded attention, begged for answers, and presented a maddening mystery Maleficent was certain she would never find the answer to. She was also sure it must have something to do with the maid who'd handed it to him so carefully.
"Just assessing the situation," Maleficent said smoothly. She set her cup down on the table, ran her fingers along the polished surface, acutely aware of the maid's eyes watching her every move. "You know, Rumplestiltskin, I wasn't expecting such a…sophisticated…estate for someone with your reputation."
He let out a cackling laugh that made a shiver run down her spine despite her rigid self-control. "Oh, dearie, you above all should know not to judge a book by its cover."
"Hmm," Maleficent said, eyes narrowing at the sight of Rumplestiltskin preening after his comment, the maid smiling a warm private smile in his direction, the dreaded Dark One straightening as if he'd received the greatest compliment. Interesting, indeed, and perhaps less dangerous than she'd first supposed. Perhaps, even, a chink in his immortal, legendary armor, one an astute witch could easily take advantage of. "Well, as agreed, I see your place, you see mine."
The slightest hesitation was Rumplestiltskin's sole reaction to betray his surprise. "The old rules, Maleficent? Showing your age a bit, are we?"
"I'm not the one who was around during the first of the Ogre Wars," she countered with an arch of her brows and a slight smirk as she tightened her hand around the cold surface of her staff. "Besides, there's a certain elegance to the old ways that the new-fangled traditions are lacking. Too course and blunt—not enough subtlety. So. The old rules. Equal exchanges of information; no one holding the advantage over the other."
"A bit impossible," he trilled with a giggle, his hands positioned in a strange gesture halfway between the showman signs of centuries ago and an arcane symbol that spoke of a hundred different magical meanings. And likely, Maleficent mused, neither of those influences were what inspired the flashy movements. "But we shall do our best."
"I believe you have until the clock strikes the moon."
His laugh was more like a snicker, and as much as she had been warned of Rumplestiltskin's mocking nature, she couldn't help but bristle a bit under his open derision. "Don't reach for riddles that are beyond you, your majesty." And that was even more mocking than the snicker. It had been decades since she'd legally held any claim to royalty, and not even her lakeside palace could change that.
"Keep the tea warm," Rumplestiltskin instructed the maid—and there was, perhaps, a hint of some unspoken command in the glances they exchanged—before he disappeared in a fluttering of crimson and violet smoke. The old showoff, Maleficent thought jealously; the different colors of smoke were almost impossible for any but the most powerful to mix, and certainly not without more effort than he seemed to enact.
"Well," she said brightly, turning from the residue of smoke to the living, breathing girl before her. "Finally alone. I don't know about you, but the professional façade he puts on for these business meetings is a bit tedious."
The maid tilted her head a bit, studied Maleficent more openly. "Oh?" she said, little more than an acknowledgement that the witch had spoken.
"Yes." Maleficent waved her hand indolently in the air and strolled casually along the table. As if she'd been here many times before. As if the room were intimately familiar to her, and she'd grown jaded to the ornaments, prizes, artifacts, and body parts on display wherever the eye fell. "He's so much more relaxed in private. It's hard to go back to all business after our…other…meetings."
The younger woman's eyes narrowed, all cold blue ice and innocent curiosity. Maleficent felt her usual thrill of pleasure at the sight of a hook so obviously caught, the bait swallowed. "How often do you meet Rumplestiltskin?"
"Often enough," she said, lowering her voice to fully let all the implications set in. She really wasn't sure how Rumplestiltskin acted when it was just him and his maid, but tiny little hints here, a twist of the hand and a flick of the eyes, a vague assertion, a definite gleam, and usually that was more than enough to prey on whatever fears a person carried within themselves. No heavy lifting required, she thought with satisfaction; just the way she liked it.
"Really?" The maid smiled, then, and Maleficent tensed, suddenly unsure. "Because you said you'd never been here before."
Maleficent laughed—a practiced laugh she could do even in her sleep, condescending and frivolous. "It changes every time, dear one. Rumplestiltskin is ageless, immortal, and has seen the passing of untold centuries. He bores easily and settings are easier to change than personalities. You, for instance…well, I guess he needed a change in that regard as well."
If she wasn't mistaken, that was honest anger in the young girl's eyes—hidden, perhaps, but not quickly or cunningly enough. She was very young, after all, and though she was obviously somewhat trained in political maneuvering, she was clumsy and awkward next to Maleficent's schooled poise. Her voice, when she spoke, was clear and calm, but cold, too. "If what you're implying is true, shouldn't that bother you?"
"Things change," Maleficent said with a shrug, her eyes drifting past the maid and back to her abandoned cup of tea. "Certain activities help to while the time away, but they're only passing luxuries. Years pass, we move on, and other diversions emerge to distract us."
"Well," the girl said, straightening to her full height—which wasn't much to speak of, perhaps a reason Rumplestiltskin had allowed himself to play with her. "I think lives are worth more than 'diversions' and hearts are dangerous things to play around with."
"Oh my." Maleficent arched a brow. She was tempted to put a hand over her chest, but she didn't want to overplay the part. The girl might be young, but there was intelligence there, too, and more than the usual dosage of insight. "I don't think I'm the one who needs to worry about that advice. Your master is the one who approached me, after all. If I were you, dear one, I'd be careful in your dealings with him. Youth attracts for only so long, and even innocence—tempting as it is to those of our calling—palls after a while. You might want to consider finding yourself a contingency plan, or at the least allies, for when he decides to rid himself of you."
The maid was silent for a long moment, something almost…surprised…in her eyes. Maleficent had the sudden feeling she'd miscalculated somewhere along the line, played the wrong angle, said the wrong thing. But in the next moment, the girl was all smiles and bashful shakes of her head. "Oh, no," she said. "You've got it all wrong. More tea?" she asked brightly, and Maleficent couldn't help but frown at her.
She took another sip of warmed mint and cream, more to give herself time to reassess the situation, but before she could decide on another angle, smoke whooshed into a corner of the room—green and purple this time, Maleficent noticed with envy—and Rumplestiltskin appeared to fill the room with his presence. He was speaking even as he appeared, his arms waving grandiosely, his smirk wicked and cunning, his steps nearly a dance, and he moved so quickly, spoke so rapidly, that Maleficent found herself left behind and scrabbling to catch up to him.
The black unicorn he presented her with made the trip worthwhile, but the tiny, smug smile the maid wore as Rumplestiltskin clapped his hands and made Maleficent vanish back to her castle left her irritated and off-balance. Perhaps, she mused as she stroked the smooth fur of her new pet, it was time to pay a visit to Regina. Her friend had helped her with the yaoguai spell even now trapping poor Prince Phillip far from Aurora; a bit of information about Rumplestiltskin's own new acquisition might be just the way to repay her for that favor.
Besides, Maleficent thought coldly, she didn't like being looked down on, especially by a mere slip of a girl. And she didn't like owing a message 'at some unspecified point in the future' to Rumplestiltskin. It always paid to have her fingers in several pies at once, retired or not, and who knew? Maybe the insinuations she'd left in the maid's mind would yet play out. She could only hope.
"Aren't you precious?" Maleficent cooed, pleased after all, and turned her attention to the delightful unicorn foal at her feet.
Belle used the excuse of fussing over the teapot and the beautiful blonde woman's cup to study Rumplestiltskin out of the corner of her eye. He'd been all show, all flourish and grandiose speech, while Maleficent had been present, but the instant she'd vanished, he'd turned almost sullen, too quiet and still. He stared at something in the distance, something she couldn't see, and he wasn't there in the room with her, but somewhere she couldn't follow. It frightened Belle, a bit, these reminders that she was so small, so young, so much less than Rumplestiltskin, who could leave at any moment, could snap at her or reveal some far-reaching, mysterious plan that he'd needed her for, could use her and never realize that she'd hoped he enjoyed her presence simply because…because of her. A foolish wish, maybe, but she couldn't deny it anymore, not after the day he'd saved her life and held her a moment too long and she'd felt his heart flutter like a tiny, captured bird in his chest.
Determinedly, shoring up her courage, Belle straightened and faced him. "Where were you?" she asked pointedly, though hard as she tried, she couldn't restrain the smile hiding in the corners of her mouth.
Rumplestiltskin started and turned to her, his eyes narrowed. "Did you not hear the witch's archaic invitation?" he declaimed with a hand to his heart.
"I did." Belle regarded him shrewdly, then asked, "So what does her castle look like?"
She couldn't help but laugh a bit when he scoffed loudly. It might have startled her, once, the violent abruptness of his actions, the sharp impatience of his speech; now she saw the humor, the mischief evident in his smirk, his extravagant gestures. He played a game with everyone, but only he seemed to realize it. And her. She thought he enjoyed having someone else recognize his jokes for what they were—hoped he did—and was almost certain he showed off, even if just a bit, for her alone.
"As if I haven't already seen her castle many times!" he said scornfully. "Arrogant of her, really, to think I needed her invitation to take a look around."
"Hmm," Belle said, and she grinned, because she knew he hadn't—this day, at least—gone to the witch's castle. She'd felt his presence—bold and intoxicating and tingling with what she assumed was magic—often enough to know when he was around, even if he was invisible at the time. But she said nothing more, because her smile was enough to tell him she knew, and her silence enough to allow him to pretend that she didn't know he'd overheard all the unvoiced lies Maleficent had dropped like poison, and if neither of them said anything, then neither of them had to address the implications behind Maleficent's method of making trouble between them. Most of the time, Belle thought Rumplestiltskin was afraid of admitting he had a heart or of facing what his heart told him, but sometimes—like today—she realized she was just as afraid as he was.
"Did you want more tea?" she asked softly, and some ever-present tension in Rumplestiltskin's lean form eased a fraction.
"Yes," he said quietly, before remembering himself and adding, "That is, after all, why I have a maid."
"Why else do you have a maid?" Belle asked suddenly as she poured tea—steaming again at a flick of Rumplestiltskin's eye. She was a bit surprised that she managed to voice the question she often pondered late at night, but at the same time, she was also relieved to finally have it out in the open.
"It's a big castle." He shrugged, as if that were all the answer there was. As if she could forget that he was the imp known for masterminding decades, maybe even centuries, in advance. But he waved a sharp hand to dismiss the topic and accepted the cup she handed him. "And," he said, quietly, but shrill and high, still playing his game, acting his part, "are you sad to see the last of another creature to take care of?"
Belle smiled and bit her lap. "The unicorn was fun," she admitted carefully. "But you're right—I have enough here."
He narrowed his eyes at her, mischief falling away behind the beginnings of suspicion.
"I am still working on dusting the library you gave me, after all," she added, and grinned as he rolled his eyes and turned to take a sip of his tea.
"You don't clean much faster than you read," he muttered, but he'd never meant the threat to begin with, so Belle merely smiled and poured herself her own cup of tea, firmly setting aside Maleficent's used cup. It looked wrong, three cups on the table rather than just two, and she contemplated asking Rumplestiltskin to vanish the cup away before deciding not to remind them both of what they were trying so hard to ignore.
Not that it was working all that well, Belle thought wryly, looking up from the tray of tea things to see Rumplestiltskin wandering over to his spinning wheel. He held the chipped cup in one hand, but with the other, he stroked the edges of the wheel, his eyes thoughtful, strained. He was too quiet, too slow, and Rumplestiltskin never meandered. Not when he could dance or prowl or move with hasty, purposeful steps. It was something Belle loved, the way he could exude confidence even as he stared at her so artlessly, the restless purpose that boiled inside him, overflowing to touch everything in his path. It made her feel alive, made her reach to catch up, strain and grow herself in order to meet him in the middle, and she loved the feeling of being expected to do more rather than to do less or fulfill only one set purpose in life.
And yet now, that purpose was hidden, steeped so long and slow that it had boiled away to nothing. They'd found an easy comfort with each other since their excursion to Sherwood Forest, and they'd been learning to adjust to the new intriguing blend of tension present since he'd held her in his arms beneath a window pouring in sunlight, but all that seemed on the verge of disappearing now. Belle felt almost sick with dread, so afraid, as she observed Rumplestiltskin's silence, that he thought she believed everything Maleficent had said. As if he were afraid that she believed it all.
And some part of Belle wondered why she didn't believe it. He was centuries old. He was smarter and more powerful and more determined than her. He was the Dark One, a magical imp with the world at his fingertips, and she was only a backward princess from a tiny kingdom who'd been desperate enough to call for the aid of dark magic.
But he was more than the Dark One. He was Rumplestiltskin, and he fidgeted nervously when she touched him, and he froze in shock when she hugged him, and he found ways to be near her even when he had nothing to say, and he looked at her sometimes as if he wanted to tell her more than he told anyone else, and Belle knew—with every particle of her being—that he had never used Maleficent or given the purple witch libraries or stared at her as if he'd never seen anything like her before.
She knew, but she didn't know how to tell him she knew.
Rumplestiltskin stirred, then, catching her attention. He placed his cup very decisively on a table that appeared beside the spinning wheel, and he sat down, set his hands to their familiar places. "It's quiet," he complained, and Belle's breath caught in her throat to hear him echoing his thoughts. "Read something," he commanded with a brief wave of agile fingers.
Belle smiled, glad his unnatural purposelessness had been replaced by an echo of more normal behavior. "What should I read?" she asked.
"The first book you read to me," Rumplestiltskin replied. It seemed a careless answer save that it was the one he always gave whenever she asked him his preference.
"I like that one, too," Belle admitted, already moving to the small set of shelves that had appeared beside the fireplace the night after she'd first offered to read aloud to Rumplestiltskin as he spun. When she found the book, her fingers moved to its worn pages as easily as Rumplestiltskin's moved atop his wheel.
"I should hope so!" Rumplestiltskin chirped with his high-pitched laugh. "You told me it was your favorite when you asked if I wanted to hear it—I'd hate to find out you lied."
"I didn't lie," she said, keeping her voice steady, looking right at him. He pretended to be too engrossed in spinning to notice her. "It is my favorite."
"Then read," he said off-handedly.
Belle looked down at the book, then back up at him, and her stomach contracted into a tight ball as she had a sudden idea. She felt almost lightheaded, because if she did this, if she said these things, then she might ruin the balance they'd found. But if she kept silent, she was afraid Maleficent's words would sit and fester between them until they could no longer pretend it'd never happened.
She took a careful breath, then moved to Rumplestiltskin's side and sat on the floor beside his stool. He went absolutely still—a different stillness then before, the type of motionlessness he always displayed when she reached out to him voluntarily—the wheel's circular motions paused, and Belle felt as if perhaps her own heart had stuttered to a halt as well. It wouldn't be the first time since she'd come to the Dark Castle.
"You know," she began, and was impressed at the conversational tone of her own voice, "as much as I love the library you gave me, I have to admit that I often end up reading the same books over and over again. Like this one." She held up the book in her hands; he watched her, puzzled despite his usual adeptness at reading people. He hadn't been confused before her father and Gaston, or while Maleficent was here—only when it was her alone did he look so confused, and that shouldn't make her so pleased, but it did.
"I love this story," she said. "It's my favorite, and instead of going to find new books, I go back to this one. I…" She paused. His eyes never left hers and in the end, she couldn't get out the word 'love.' "I like it," she said instead. He still hadn't looked away, dawning comprehension erasing his confusion. Her throat was almost painfully tight, but she pushed on. "I like it so much that it's…well, it's enough for me. And," she added more definitively, "I think you're the same."
For a moment, Rumplestiltskin said nothing. His eyes fell away from her and he stared at the chipped cup instead, sitting near his elbow. Belle could almost hear his mind working furiously, turning her words over and over, searching for the loophole, the trick, the catch.
But there wasn't one.
Slowly, hesitantly, as if all his grace had deserted him, he turned his head and looked at her. She wanted to smile at him, to offer him some hint of encouragement, but she couldn't. Her head was spinning, her stomach gone so light and fluttering that it felt as if she'd lost it completely, and her blood thrummed in her ears. Rumplestiltskin's lips curved into a smile—a smug, pleased smile—and Belle almost let out a giant sigh of relief rattling around inside her ribcage.
"I thought you said there was no one like me," he observed, leaning in toward her, confident once more, daring her, taunting the tension between them.
"You said that." And now she could smile, could grin, because he was alive and smoldering with power and purpose and his warm breath caressed her cheek. "But you're right. You are singularly unique, Rumplestiltskin. However…" She paused to swallow. "There are…well, people who complement us. Not identical to you, but fitting, like puzzle pieces that go together."
She wasn't sure who was more shocked at what she'd said—Rumplestiltskin or herself. But finally, when Belle was certain she was going to die of embarrassment—of sharp, sudden despair and regret—Rumplestiltskin's features relaxed into another smile.
"People that fit," he sneered. "Beauty and the Beast, eh?"
It was cutting and cynical and self-derisive, but Rumplestiltskin never revealed his vulnerability if he could help it. There was always something behind his cruelty, his piercing words and glowering disapproval. Belle had learned to look, and she'd begun to recognize the emotions he held in him, so she gazed up at him and saw self-loathing and fear and desperate hope, all so clearly spelled out in the slant of his eyes and the curve of his fingers, the set of his shoulders and the full-on glare he directed her way.
He waited, and because he had given her a moment of alarm with his silence, she hesitated a beat, another beat, another, each one pulsing in her throat and drumming against her chest. When he tensed, his muscles all turned to elastic steel, she granted him a smile and said what she knew he'd been waiting, hoping, longing for.
"You're not a beast," she told him.
He relaxed—and she loved that her words could erase all the tension and uncertainty and fear left by Maleficent's calculating words—and gave her his own tentative smile, so much sweeter and shyer than any of his others. Belle clutched that smile and the struck, wandering look in his eyes close to her heart like the treasures they were, and she opened their book and began to read. Eventually, the muted clack of the wheel sounded as counterpoint to her rising and falling voice as gold thread wound its way to the floor in shimmering coils. Beside her, his foot brushing the edges of his skirt, Rumplestiltskin relaxed, sure and soft in her presence.
Everything was back to normal.
Belle had always longed for adventure, but now, in this Dark Castle with Rumplestiltskin at her side, she found herself more than happy with routines turned into habits turned into expectations. As long as Rumplestiltskin was there, she was beginning to realize, she was happy with anything. And strangely enough, she didn't mind that change at all.
The End