Reverse Entropy
Summary: Broken cups do not mend themselves. The dead do not return. And monsters don't get happy endings. These are truths Gold knows. But the cup sits fixed on his counter, and the world shifts beneath his feet. Belle/Rumpelstiltskin.
Rating: T
Warnings: Vague spoilers for Skin Deep, Gold being Gold
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"You may see a cup of tea fall off of a table and break into pieces on the floor. But you will never see the cup gather itself back together and jump back onto the table." – Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
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After the…incident with Moe French, Gold keeps the cup where he can see it at all times. It sits a safe distance from the edge of his desk when he does his books, rests safely under his counter when he is at the shop, and stays on his bedside table when he sleeps.
It wouldn't be good for his image, he knows, if anyone noticed his little weakness; it wouldn't be good for his life if Regina ever found out how much it truly meant to him, but Gold can't make himself care.
It is all that he has left of her, of his precious Belle. A chipped cup and an empty heart, her words as true as any curse he ever cast.
But there is nothing Rumpelstiltskin can do, because in this land where magic is a children's myth, cups may fall and break, but they do not repair themselves. This is the law of entropy; nature, unhindered, heads towards a state of disorder.
Rumpelstiltskin, chaos's most faithful servant, understands this better than most.
He has resigned himself to the fact that the most he can hope for is maintaining his power in this miserable little cursed town, and hiding his cup away with the hope that it will be enough to weather the coming storm.
Then, there is a fire at the hospital.
Gold is not unaware of it, of course; this is his town as much as it is Regina's, but he does not get personally involved in the situation. The people, he hears through the grapevine are safe, and Gold cares little if the hospital burns; he has no desire to once again become involved in an arson case. The good Sherriff Swan might have let him off the hook once, but he holds no illusions on the fact that his past and his reputation make him a handsome suspect, especially in the Mayor's eyes.
Gold remembers too well the icy powerlessness of prison to chance it.
However information is always power, and in these precarious times Gold can't afford to be behind in the times, and so three days after the hospital blaze, Gold ventures out on a fact fishing expedition around town. It's hardly a challenge: cursed though Storybrooke is, it is still a small town, and gossip runs rampant.
From the diner and the little red wolf Gold learns that the word on the street is that the fire was the result of a gas main explosion. From his walk down Main Street he hears that, despite all her best efforts to hide it, Regina's displeasure with the situation is pretty clear.
And, from across the street, looking at the mayor's face, he learns that this wasn't her doing.
Regina is a decent liar; not in his league of course, but decent all the same. But she's always had her tells, and the tension Emma's presence has caused has only made those tells more obvious.
Like, for instance, when she's frustrated or fearful of losing control, a vein throbs in her neck.
That particular vein is throbbing rather steadily now.
"Mr. Gold," Regina says, as she strides up to meet him, trying for casual arrogance, but her tone is off, and the part of him that is still the Dark One smells a hint of fear.
"Madame Mayor," he purrs, curiosity now well stoked, "Terrible business, this hospital situation. But luckily I hear no one was hurt."
"Yes." Regina says slowly, trying to covertly read him, and Gold lays himself out, projecting transparency when in reality his mind races with possibilities. "A small mercy."
"Well we must all be grateful for those, mustn't we be?" He drawls, his voice a mockery of pleasantness, letting nothing through. He's missing something here, but Regina will get no satisfaction in knowing that.
"Yes, well," Regina says after a moment, her tone still carefully constructed, "There's no need for you to…worry. It will all be as it should be once again."
"Of course, dearie," he says, his voice soft, but not kind; he's not going to leave this alone and Regina knows it, but they are excellent at pretense, and so when Regina simply nods abruptly and turns to go, he lets her.
This is the game they play; Regina has lost control for a moment and now it's a silent and unseen race to get to whatever it is before she manages to hide it away again.
Rumpelstiltskin doesn't intend to lose.
He's grown tired of this curse, woven only so that he could manipulate the magic into giving him anything he wanted. In retrospect he should have known; magic is a powerful but fickle thing. He is rich here, and powerful, but he is without the two things…the two people he really wanted.
After all, broken cups do not mend, lost love ones do not return, and monsters do not get happy endings.
At least back in the Enchanted Forest, he could be who he really was. Here, stripped of the only people who ever made him feel human, he feels like an imposter of a man, left with only broken dreams.
He catches a break when he sees the good Sherriff Swan striding down the road, and he shakes his melancholy away for favor of the thrill of the game, shifting his path to meet hers, but he does not increase his pace.
His feelings on the good Sherriff, their precious Savior are somewhat mixed. On one hand she's vital to breaking the curse, and she's an eminently useful and amusing thorn in Regina's side. On the other, her rampant unwillingness in believing in the curse is irksome. It's to be expected given her parents; in all his years, he's never seen any two people more stubborn than Snow White and her Charming, and it's even necessary; a twit who believed too easily would be no match for Regina. But still, it makes for painfully slow progress, and Gold has been accused of being many things in his life, but a patient man was never one of them.
However he is once again interrupted from his thoughts by the arrival of the Sherriff, who meets his eyes deliberately before stopping her stride to talk with him.
"Good afternoon Sherriff Swan," he begins, and then he stops, and oh, what is this? He does not have the experience reading her face that he does Regina's, but Emma is much clearer; she is not the liar that Regina is, and her face is a raucous of emotion. Something is off. Gold's interest, already peaked by his talk with Regina, only increases more.
"Gold," she says, tone brusque, but Gold doesn't detect anything personal in it. Emma is frustrated, but not at him, and Gold has always been good at reading between the lines. Whatever is bothering the mayor is bothering the Sherriff, and anything that does that is worth knowing.
"Not having a good day, Sherriff?" He asks, as solicitously as he can manage, modulating his voice into the realm of casual interest.
"Not exactly," Emma says, and then she rakes her hand through her hair and huffs her breath out measuredly, a calming gesture, before she continues, slightly cautiously. "You haven't seen anything…out of the ordinary today, have you? Anyone suspicious?"
He smirks, just a little, at the irony of the question, and refrains from telling her just how unusual this sleepy little berg is. It would do no good to tell her that her coffee is served to her by a woman who, in a previous life, used to become a wolf and eat people once every month, though a part of him yearns to only for the satisfaction of being able to see the look on her face.
Instead he simply replies, his voice still casual, "Can't say that I have." And then he smirks, only a little, because this is a town where no one can leave, "Have you lost someone, Sherriff?"
"Misplaced," she says, her mouth tight with what Gold is beginning to realize is worry, and he wonders idly if this has something to do with Henry. It fits, he supposes; if something has happened with Henry then both Emma and the Queen, heartless though she is, would both be a little out of sorts.
However before he can offer his help-he has a certain, small fondness for the bright little boy with the fairy-tale book that believes-Emma attention is caught by something across the street, and when he turns to look he sees Mary Margaret standing in front of the diner, worrying what looks like a piece of paper between her hands.
She's also trying to signal Emma discretely, though she's doing a poor job of it, and Rumpelstiltskin almost misses the bandit princess she used to be. A bizarre distraction, fixated on true love, but she had been amusing. She had also been much better at being sneaky. Her prince had a few head wounds that could attest to that.
However because he imagines this also has to do with Henry, he takes pity on her and turns back to Emma, pretends he hasn't seen anything and pitches his voice louder than it needs to be. "I'll be sure to contact you if I see anything out of the ordinary." And then, because he really can't help it, "Anything for the law."
Emma rolls her eyes minutely, and he smirks fully at her in answer, and then he bows, only slightly mockingly in farewell before he turns and begins to make his way back home, letting Emma head over to Mary Margaret.
It was a mixed day he will admit; he has more questions than he has answers, but it is getting on, and although it pains him to admit it, even in the privacy of his own head, he's been away from the cup for too long. He's starting to get anxious, and he knows that he has to get back and make sure that the cup is still alright before the itchy feeling will leave him.
With that in mind he makes fairly good time getting home; he is crippled yes, but not infirm and this is not a large town. It has always been status that makes his home seem unapproachable and distant; in reality it is quite close. Once he reaches his home, he goes inside, stands in the foyer and removes his shoes and takes off his suit jacket as his routine, and then makes to turn on the lights in the kitchen.
And then, his hand hovering over the light switch, something makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and he freezes, braces his hand on his cane for another intruder and slides his eyes sideways.
And then…Stops. Turns. Stares.
He left the cup in a velvet box, hidden in a wardrobe. He does this every time he goes out, and he never feels secure until he is once again looking at it, tracing the chip with his fingers.
The cup is sitting out on the counter.
The chip is gone.
No, he realizes, as he picks up the cup with hands that tremble. Not gone. Filled in. There is a thin line, a small, spider crack that indicates where the chip was, and the faintest hint of glue, applied with a careful hand.
But it is the original piece that has been added back; Rumpelstiltskin knows this cup better than he knows his own mind, and the china matches, and for the life of him he cannot think of how this has happened.
"Rumpelstiltskin," A voice says, hardly more than a whisper and he freezes his entire body locking up at the soft spoken word, and for a second he forgets how to breathe, not because it is his name, his true name, but because he knows that voice. He never, no matter how much he, in his darkest moments, begged, forgot the sound of that voice.
His muscles stay locked, and he doesn't, with every fibre of his being, want to turn; is terrified of doing so and seeing nothing there and having to deal with the crushing realization that this is all just a hallucination or a cruel dream. However the voice, no matter how delusional it is, was an entreaty and Rumpelstiltskin has been a servant of magic too long to tempt fate. This is the price of magic; you make your bed and then you bloody well sleep in it.
And so, bracing himself for the inevitable pain, he turns.
But there, standing in his kitchen, is Belle.
"Belle," he says through lips gone numb, and he nearly drops the precious cup from fingers he cannot feel. And then again, because he never thought he'd say her name again, "Belle."
And it is, without a doubt, Belle. Clothed not in her golden dress, but in the clothing of this world, slightly too large on her body, likely someone else's, but Belle. No spell could recreate the blue of her eyes or the particular chestnut of her hair; he knows this from experience.
Suddenly he is light headed; he sways precariously on his feet as his already weak knee threatens to give way. However instead of hitting the ground, he finds soft hands on his flesh, guiding him towards a chair.
"Head between your legs," she says, his competent little caregiver, kneeling beside his chair as she guides him into the position to stave off a fainting spell. And for a moment he stays there, bent over, head between his legs, Belle's hands on his shoulders, rubbing soothingly, and just breathes; breathes like he hasn't been able to since he sent her away and he heard of her death.
"How?" He says after a few moments, his voice still stunned, and even he doesn't know what it refers to. How is she here? How is she alive? Just how?
Belle, however, interprets the open ended query a different way, gesturing with her shoulder towards he cup he still holds in his hands and answering softly, "I kept the chipped piece, back in the Dark Castle. I thought you could repair it with magic, but you seemed not to mind." And there's that little smile, that private one that she only ever gave to him, and Gold's heart flutters instinctually, helplessly, in response as she continues. "And then, after, with the Queen, I kept it as a reminder of you. And I suppose it worked, because even after the curse was cast I never forgot you."
"You were dead," he says, still in the grasp of shock, still trying to process, and then it clicks, "She told me you were dead."
"I know, she told me-The Queen. Gloated over it really; pulling one over on the great Rumpelstiltskin." And then she grasps his hand between her own before she continues, and Rumpelstiltskin realizes, with a certain of awe, that she's, after everything, comforting him. "But none of those things ever happened to me. She kept me locked up, in her castle and then in the hospital, but that was it."
"The fire…you were the person Emma misplaced," he says, still dazed, the events of today beginning to make sense. He is too numb for rage, but he knows it will come. Soon, he will want to rip the flesh off the Queen and burn it, inch by inch, while she screams, but now, he is helpless to do more than soak up Belle's presence.
Belle nods in affirmation, before she verbally confirms his suspicions. "She found me when the fire started, and she hid me at her place from Regina. I left her a note. I didn't want to worry her, but I had to come and see you."
"You should be furious at me." He says finally, his voice regaining its conviction as the shock gives away to familiar self-loathing. If he was a better man, he would try and remove himself from her grasp, but he cannot bring himself to lose the warmth of her hands and so he barely moves, his anger visible but self-contained, a storm in a bottle. "I wronged you so badly, twice over when I made you leave and when I didn't come for you."
However Belle brushes his self-loathing away with nothing more than a small gesture, bringing her hand to his cheek, making him meet her eyes, and the emotion there, warm and entirely absent of anger steals his breath.
"We both made mistakes, and I forgave you for yours long ago," she says, her thumb stroking gently across his jaw, "But I love you. You didn't believe me the first time I said it, and I suppose I don't blame you for that, but it was true then and its true now."
And then Belle pauses, cups his cheek with her hand, before she continues, her tone warm but serious, "The only question is, can you believe it now?"
And ah, Rumpelstiltskin realizes, that is the crux of it, isn't it?
Because, well…Broken cups don't mend. People don't come back from the dead. Monsters don't get happy endings.
Three undeniable truths.
But here the cup is, whole again, and here is Belle, the impossible made possible. And Rumpelstiltskin, who's been living off the memory of her smile and a chipped cup, finally let's himself believe.
He is tired of being afraid; for her he will be brave.
"I love you," he says softly, helplessly and then he kisses her, gently, like the princess she is, and she clings to him in return, and with her lips offers him forever once again.
He is only a man, and so he takes it, and then her hands are fisted in his hair and they are kissing, all hunger and desperation and love.
Kissing like it's the end of the world.
Later, much later, when he is finally able to draw his eyes away from her, he will look up and see the walls of the Dark Castle around them and realize that it was.
Then she will kiss him, kiss his human face and his human lips, and he will laugh, joyfully, and know that it is only the beginning.
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"Someday perhaps a cup will come together." – Hannibal Lecter, Hannibal
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Epilogue
Later, much later, they journey to Snow and Charming's Castle, to see how everyone is faring after the end of the curse.
Snow punches Rumpelstiltskin in the face.
Belle offers to kiss it better.
He accepts.
Then, in the aftermath of that little drama, Baelfire literally falls out of the sky and lands in the castle foyer. Emma yelps, and then, amongst a great amount of shouting, it's quickly revealed that he's Henry's father.
Snow, Charming and August all punch him in the face.
Rumpelstiltskin simply hugs his son, and believes in happily ever after.
He draws the line at letting Belle kiss him better though.
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FIN
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A/N: The mark of a truly complicated and great story, I think, is when you finding yourself rooting for the monster. Silence of the Lambs was the first story that ever had me doing that for Hannibal Lecter and his Clarice, and Once Upon a Time is the latest show that has, for Rumpelstiltskin and his Belle. It is easy to fall in love with the prince after all; the monster not so much, and Once Upon a Time has done that so well. And so to honor that, and because of that one conversation in Hannibal the book (which I heartily recommend, as it's much better and much more twisted then the movie) about the nature of broken teacups, this fic was born. A shameless reunion fix-it, I admit, but hey, Emma did find Belle, and so technically she did facilitate the curse breaking! As always, enjoy, and reviews and constructive criticism are always welcome.