Rumbelle Secret Santa gift for the loveliness that is Allinthefoam. She's the nicest thing since the baguette. :)

Prompt: "homesick, date night, comfort, cuddles"


"... for as long as you live in the past, you'll never find your future," said one of the older-than-life parchments Belle had some day found in the farthest, dustiest corner of her father's library. She knew it to be true, but she also knew that as long as she lived in her present, she'd never find that heroic future she so often dreamed of either.

The present... This was not how she would have imagined her last few days in a kingdom free of ogres go by. Spending her time with Gaston was so very different from what her father had hoped it would be for her, companionship and comfort farthest from the things the large man could provide her with. Belle had known it ever since they'd spoken to one another for the first time, and yet it seemed to be her father's only joy in a time of mourning - to think her protected and cared for by someone other than himself -, that she didn't have it in her heart to deny him this.

And so she would allow her maids to braid her hair, dress her in the finest of garments, and she would put on the less exasperated smile she could muster as she'd unhurriedly make her way down to one of the castle's finest rooms, where Gaston would await her to share dinner, day after excruciating day. They were never alone, thank the gods, her governess a fierce defender of propriety, yet Belle had never felt lonelier than she did during those long hours spent with him. Lonelier than when the war broke loose and she was forbidden to leave the castle grounds ever again, lonelier even than when, a little girl still, she'd finally understood why she had a governess instead of a mother.

Their conversation was stilted and hollow, none of her preoccupations shared by Gaston. She didn't ride and he didn't read, and he had a propensity to critique while hers was to appraise. He spoke of how he'd train their children, have them grow into mighty warriors feared in all the realms, and not of the knowledge their parents would bestow on them, or of how much they would be loved. Gaston grabbed her hand much too tight and kept it for far too long, and he rarely looked her in the eye. But that was for the best, Belle assumed, for his eyes scared her, all blunt coldness and little depth.


Tonight has been no different from their other dinners, which now, with the coming of Spring and King Maurice's insistence, draw out with a walk on the terrace until the time comes for Belle to retire to her chambers - she would huff and puff then, and swear the next evening she will find a way to bribe the valets into turning all clocks forward.

There have been, however, a few silver linings; amongst them, the fact that Gaston clearly does not grasp the notion of taking a walk together.

So when his gait, much faster than Belle's own, leaves her behind once more, Belle plasters herself into a small nook between two walls, hiding from view and hoping he will be his usual slow self in coming back to look for her. She peeks from her hiding place, just enough to catch a glimpse of the man, still gesturing amply, completely engaged by his own speech on the best sword craftsmen in the realm, and Belle sighs in relief.

"Good riddance," she mutters, and sticks her tongue out at his sturdy shadow as it disappears around a corner. Slumping against the cold wall behind her, Belle is unsurprised, if not a little guilty, to find it a more amiable presence than Gaston's.

The early Spring air could stir her, the wide fields before her allure her, but it's this feeling, just now fully forming beneath cloak and silk and skin, which captures all her attention and makes her thumping heart sink. Oh, she has known it, and for quite some time, but now she can feel it. She has truly become invisible; to Gaston, though she really doesn't mind that, but to her father as well, for how can he think that she is happy, and to this awaiting world, bright and beautiful yet forbidden to her for as long as the war ravages their lands and this charade of a betrothal continues. And... to herself. For how is she to know who she is if nobody ever sees her?

Belle lowers her gaze - she often does, these days -, and it's no surprise to her when her reflection in the wine glass she's been holding starts swirling, because she can feel tears burning in her eyes. She tries to be brave, wills herself to blink them away, but when one disobedient teardrop defies her and falls into her glass, managing to entwine itself with the fleeting reflection of a falling star, she cannot help but wish for freedom. And future.

But... the liquid... it does not stop its whirling and twirling, and now the small glass is shaking in her even smaller hands, and Belle's eyes widen to plates when the kaleidoscope of patterns and colours finally stills and an image other than her own settles onto the surface.

The image of a man. A strangely looking man, with dragon hides as clothes and scales where skin should be, with curly hair and equally curled nails, dark and claw-like as he scrapes them at his chin. And as she watches him, transfixed, the only thought Belle can grasp is that he has a tired, forlorn look upon his face akin to that of a traveller who has seen much but returned home to little. If she's to judge from the faint noises coming out of her glass - voices hushed and coins dropping -, the man is in an inn or tavern. He seems to stare without seeing, but that is until his reptilian eyes focus on what Belle can only assume is his own drink, and he frowns. And giggles.

"How drunk am I?" he titters, and Belle's mouth gasps open.

"You... you can see me?" She asks, less than a whisper, for she is afraid whatever magic has caused this would shatter lest she does more.

"Dearie, I can also see that horrific tapestry, or whatever that at your back is, but it doesn't make it any more real," he says as he points in Belle's general direction with a shaky, somewhat inebriated finger.

"What?" Belle frowns and turns, only to find herself facing an all too colourful painting of Kings George and Midas returning victoriously from the battlefield.

"No, wait, that is real, I am real!"

"Well, then you should take advantage and burn it," the man dismisses nastily, making to rise.

"I might," Belle chuckles, and that seems to get his attention.

"My… my name is Belle. Please… don't leave?" She asks, words a delicate flame of hope flickering in the night's breeze, and when did that small, needy whimper became her voice? Her words seem to have an effect on him, however, because he sags back into his chair, a half-intrigued, half-amused look playing in his eyes. As carefully as she can, Belle places her glass on the banister, away from the threat of trembling fingers.

"You would speak to a figment of the ale, Belle?" Comes his reply from inside the glass, his tone less sharp weapon, warmer.

"I would speak to you. And I'm having wine, just so you know. I've… never tasted ale," Belle mutters embarrassedly.

"Why ever not?"

"Well, I've never been to a tavern, for one. And they don't serve ale in court, for some reason..." she trades off, brows and nose scrunched in her attempt to make sense of the nobility's drinks of choice.

"Am I in a tavern, then?" The man asks, and there's a playful tone to this new-found, warmer voice of his, one Belle thinks she might come to enjoy hearing more of.

"Aren't you?" Belle grins, and he counters:

"Are you in court?"

"Why yes, yes I am", she answers with a deep curtsy… that he probably cannot see anyway, Belle realizes belatedly. "So, what are you doing in a tavern?"

"I haven't said… " He sighs, deflated. "What am I doing indeed, drinking off my wits to the point of talking to a foolish girl through an… alcoholic portal."

Belle chooses to ignore words such as "girl", "foolish" and "lost wits", instead focusing on the more important one. "Is that what this is, a portal?" Her eyes widen with the ramifications of this, a bundle of excitement instantly forming inside her chest.

"Why are you asking?" His eyes narrow to slits of suspicion.

"Oh, why must you be so thick?" Belle throws up her hands in exasperation.

"Well, why must you be so curious?"

"I… I cannot leave my home," comes Belle's late reply, words reluctant in forming and voice the feeblest she has ever heard herself. "So I don't get many opportunities to hear tales other than war recounts of doom and dread. Not anymore, not in this land. That is why I'm asking."

She searches his eyes then, willing him to understand there is innocence beneath her questions, for it is obvious he has things and people to fear - and Belle does not want to be one of them -, things to hide and his own nastiness to hide behind, but he is obstinately evading looking at her, instead focusing on his hands as they fiddle with the cuffs of his very peculiar coat. But Belle too knows to wait. She has been waiting all her life.

When he finally speaks, there is no trace left of the earlier sing-song in his voice:

"I am afraid I do not have any merry stories to tell you either, my lady."

And when he finally meets her eyes, his own heartbreakingly oscillating between hopelessness and hopefulness, Belle cannot help the small, compassionate smile that grazes her features.

"Then maybe we can make up a few stories, together," she says.

When he stands still like this - has she managed to surprise him? - so stock still that not even a blink of his eye is between them, and Belle can get a closer look at him, well, he still looks strange, but she thinks she could easily get used to his kind of strangeness. When she doesn't have to divide her attention between grand gestures or focus all her concentration on deciphering the meaning behind his tangle of words, it is almost as if she can see another man entirely, gazing at her from behind a mask. But right before she can see him, the moment dissolves with the crunching of pebbles beneath heavy boots alerting Belle of another, highly undesirable presence.

"Oh, no!"

"What? What is it?" He asks, confused.

"Gaston is coming back." She has forgotten all about Gaston!

"Who?"

"Just my oaf of a betrothed," Belle says glumly.

"No love lost there, I see," he chuckles. "Well, you'd better stop talking to yourself, dear. Wouldn't want your betrothed to break the engagement on counts of you going bonkers."

"I am not talking to myself," Belle pouts, "and I would definitely want him to do just that!"

Judging from the stupefied look on his face - and Belle gets that look directed at her quite often - he has no idea of what she's saying.

"I'm sorry, I have to go. Will... will I see you again? I mean, the portal… Do you think we'll ever meet… again?" She finishes lamely.

"Dearie, I'm not even sure we have met," he speaks to her tenderly, as if to sooth a child, and it only makes Belle want to keep this, for them to keep seeing each other. But she cannot say that to him, can she?

"Right… Well, then… enjoy your ale. And… have a good life."

"Goodnight, Belle," he says, gracing her with the beginning of his first smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Goodnight, thick man whose name I still don't know," she says affectionately.

"Rumplestiltskin," she hears him whisper just as his image inside her glass fades away.

Belle has to support her weight on the banister, lest her shaking knees send her toppling to the castle floor. R-Rumple… The shock of her discovery is almost as great as the shock of feeling Gaston's overly-muscular arm sneak up her side, but instead of the horrifying embrace she has come to expect, Belle watches appalled as Gaston grabs her glass, greedily gulps down her wine, then throws the empty glass over the banister.

"No!" Belle shrieks, moving to save the all-too-precious item from his hands and arriving too late.

"What? We have plenty of wine, Belle," Sir Gaston declares, voice booming.

"How positively primeval of you, Gaston," Belle admonishes, turning on her heels and leaving Gaston behind in his most common state: mouth hanging open.


Belle didn't need assistance from her maids in undressing for bed that night, so furious she practically yanked her dress and underthings off of her, and when she watched the chambermaids bring in scalding water for her bath, the thought of drowning Gaston in it passed her mind. Who did he think he was, drinking up her wine, destroying her glassware?

The warm bath failed to calm her anger, Belle soon realized as she found herself slamming the door to her bath chamber shut behind her. She took a seat at her dresser, occupying her hands with plucking hairpins free and sending them rattle on the wooden floors. Of course it was not the loss of the physical items that irritated her, but the loss of a connection, of conversations and timid smiles, of whatever else that portal could have signified for her and… Rumplestiltskin.

The Dark One. Nefarious, treacherous, intriguing Rumplestiltskin… Of course she knew about him, about her father's absolute refusal to seek his help in vanquishing the Ogres. Belle grinned as she abandoned her fuzzy slippers on the floor and cuddled inside her wool blanket. She would have to raid the library tomorrow for all books she could find on him. She needed to know more. Yes, she shall peel all layers and uncover everything there is to know about Rumplestiltskin.