Fix-it fic for "In The Name of the Brother". Literally. SPOILERS abound. Very, very loosely implied Rumbelle. Mostly Belle angst. Guest appearance by Dove. Sorry if anyone had a similar idea and I infringed unknowingly.
The shards are still there.
Belle tries not to stare at them but in the sterile environment of her room, they are the only thing out of place. Like her. She is out of place and just as broken as the cup.
Hours after her outburst, when she is calm again and he is long gone, she starts feeling guilty. And it doesn't make sense to her. The shards of the broken cup lie on the floor - and it was just a cup and it was already damaged - and Belle lies in her bed and tries not to look at them.
He shouldn't have pushed so much, that unknown man who stared at her with a pained face and spoke nonsense about castles and magic. Out on the road, his hand glowed but it must have been a hallucination, brought on by shock of whatever had happened to her. She hates the fact that she doesn't remember anything before the road. It's not right.
The cup was a small pretty thing before she broke it.
Belle lets out a long breath. The cup. She keeps thinking about the cup. Her eyes stray to the shards again. She didn't mean to break it. She was stressed and the man kept talking and pushing and she just reacted. He said the cup was hers and surely she can break her own things if she wants to. Even if they are talismans. Not that the talisman did her much good, did it?
She falls into an uneasy sleep. Her dreams are a mess of colours and sounds she doesn't recognize, too vague to be of any help. She is woken by someone entering the room and for a moment she thinks the man is back. He has been her only visitor and maybe she could apologize for how she shouted at him. She knows he only wanted to help, dubious as his methods are. But it's not him.
The man who enters is tall and strong and for a moment Belle is afraid but then the man looks at her and bows his head respectfully.
"Miss Belle, how do you do?"
"Who- who are you?"
"My name is Dove. I work for Mr. Gold."
Mr. Gold is the name of the man who brought her the cup, she recalls. Belle wonders why he would send this man to her room - to keep and eye on her? - but as Dove kneels down and starts carefully gathering the shards into a small, see-through bag, she understands.
She watches Dove as he lifts each piece gently - surprisingly so for such a big man - and puts it into the bag. A strange feeling comes over her. She is quite sure that the cup was not very expensive even when whole but it must have been precious to Mr. Gold for some reason if he sends his employee to collect its pieces. It wasn't just a cup.
"Dove?" she asks quietly and the man pauses in his work, looking up at her.
"Yes, Miss Belle?"
"What are you going to do with the pieces?" she asks.
"Mr. Gold told me to gather them all and bring them to his shop."
"Why not throw it out?"
Dove shrugs and picks up the last pieces, looking carefully around to make sure he missed none.
"I don't question the boss," he tells her as he straightens up. "Do you need anything? Mr. Gold said I'm to get you anything you want."
Belle bites her lip and looks down. After everything she told him, after she shouted at him, this strange Mr. Gold still looks after her. Are his reasons selfish? She doesn't know. She won't know until she remembers and it is far from a certainty that she will.
And then an idea comes. A wonderful, terrible idea.
"Is there something that can put broken pieces together?"
"Many things, Miss. Depends on what you want to repair."
Belle takes a deep breath and tells herself to be brave. She can stay in bed, pitying herself and the fact she doesn't remember anything. Or she can try and mend some things, if not her memory.
"That broken cup," she says in a stronger voice than she knew she possessed. Dove doesn't act surprised, he just nods.
"Of course, I know just the thing."
He leaves the bag with her and Belle stares down at the pieces. Maybe she is desperate but a part of her believes that if she can make right even one thing, the rest will fall into place eventually.
Dove comes back quickly and hands her the supplies - a crinkly, shiny sheet, something he says is called glue, a small brush, a pair of gloves - and explains how those things are used. He seems to understand she wants to do this on her own and leaves her to her work.
It's not perfect. Small bits and pieces are missing still and she has to guess half of the time where the pieces she does have fit but she is patient and the shape is slowly restored. The cup is no longer a beautiful, delicate thing. It's full of cracks and missing more pieces than she has expected. But it's recognizable as a cup again. No longer a mass of broken shards laying on the floor.
Belle knows that Dove will come back to check on her and she considers giving him the cup to take to that shop he mentioned. But Mr. Gold said the cup was hers and after she spent hours gluing it together, she feels the same way.
She puts it on her night table, the broken thing put back together. No, it's not pretty any more but somehow, it has become precious to her. Yes, she will keep the cup as her talisman, not because Mr. Gold said so, but because she now believes that every broken thing can be repaired if one just tries. She hopes that someone tries for her.
A/N: I had to rewatch the "scene" several times to make sure the premise was viable. I'm emotionally exhausted. Pick me up, please?