Awake
It's been a while since I posted anything OUaT. I don't quite know when I wrote this, but it was certainly pre-season 1, post-season finale. Luckily it didn't take much editing to fit in the canon. I hope you enjoy...
-XXX-
Sleep didn't come as it once had. She practically had to fight for it, battle every night for some decent REMs. Any brief period of rest was a godsend.
While she is awake, Belle has a lot of time to think. Of umbrellas and cakes and skylines and trees and tresses and, naturally, teacups. Blue-patterned teacups. Naturally.
In the dank cell, she'd had plenty of time for thinking. Or dreaming. The kind one does without sleep. She would trace pictures on the windows, or count the bricks, or run cold fingers over her shaking legs. And then, simply, think. Minutes melded into hours. Hours to days. Days to weeks. Weeks to months. Months to seasons. Then years. And so on. It became a dizzying blur.
Until him. Then things became decidedly less blurry. Like the end of a carousel ride, when the pastel-coloured ponies would slow to a steady gallop, and riders could just begin to once again make out shapes and faces. When he came, she began to feel time shift again. It moved, as always. But suddenly, it demanded to be felt.
Oh, how she felt it. Every passing second. He brought her out from from the damp room beneath the hospital, with a gentle gaze, caught her elbow with tender hands, a cast of worry about his aura. He introduced her to cheeseburgers, milkshakes, boutique shops. He may own the town, thankyouverymuch, but he wasn't above guiding her from his pawn shop, buckling her in the front seat of his understated champagne-coloured Astro, explaining the layout of his yard, or instructing her how to use an electric kettle. That's when she felt time move again. When his fingers brushed the back of her knuckles. When she was forced to hold back a gush of air out of surprise. When she was secretly pleased that he decided to leave the house late, just so as to give her a lesson, entitle "The Making of Scrambled Eggs."
It was when the night came, when she sank into the mattress, in her room — one with one door, two windows, a proper wardrobe (he'd said that the house was built before closets were technically invented, making her wonder if closets ever were popular enough to be invited to the junior-senior prom, and after all, she rather preferred them, there was something magical about the massive pieces of furniture), a pink rug, a chest of drawers, lamp, beside table, and a bed, all encased around four walls, one of which was shared with him - and closed her eyes that time would halt again. Or, at least, slow. The dawn will still come. It always came. No matter how long it took in it's inevitable arrival, dawn would return, sure as a salmon swimming upstream to nest.
To pass the many hours, she would breathe. In. And out. In. Out.
In.
Out.
Roll over, for comfort. Breathe some more.
Try to clear her mind, as Dr. Hopper suggested. Get a drink of water.
Sing to herself. Stare out the window, blinking into the moonlight. Count the stars.
Stare into the ceiling. Try to make out some sort of animals or shapes out of the popcorn-like texture. Breathe.
Stare at the wall. Trace the carved patterns on the furniture.
Read a book.
Close her eyes. Breathe. Imagine far-away places, distant peoples. Think.
But she'd always just go straight to thinking about before. About things distasteful, topics she ought not think about. Forbidden fruits. Hateful things. Hopeful things.
Him.
And the thought of him would only keep her awake more. Her sense seemed to double, and she would grow even more aware of the mere wall between them, the space of the rose-carpeted hallways, the solid oak door...for perhaps a few seconds, Belle could almost hear him breathing, with her. The lightest of snores coming from the back of this throat. For a touch of a minute she felt a solid heat beside her, in the sheets, as though another body shared the bed. She could sense the rise and fall of fabric in time with another's moving chest.
The moment would flicker. She would shake herself from the imagined reverie.
Then breathe some more.
Sometimes, it worked. She'd somehow fall into sleep, as one accidently might fall into a river, or fall down a flight of stairs. Not entirely intentional, perhaps a bit of a hassle.
But only sometimes.
He's in the room next door. She might very well rouse him, as he told her that she could for anything. Minor things. Any little incidence, or trouble on her mind.
But this sounds silly. So, she doesn't. She breathes. She is…awake.
But awake is not so bad. Awake avoids the dreams. The freakish musings. Awake to think.
She is so tired of thinking. When she was young, she never thought she'd ever tire of wonderment and question. It was a part of life. That was, of course, before the dank and dark dungeon, before the room beneath the hospital. There was nothing to do but think of those places. And she's grown quiet tired of her own thoughts. Her own mind. Oh, but she is so very weary, just wants to curl into a ball and sleep it all away, release the thoughts, erase the day. She wants to rest. She wants to never wake again.
Time might then halt again. But she would not be 'round to notice.
-XXX-
I don't remember writing this. I just happened to be browsing through my one-shot files, looking for prompts - because I tend to get ideas, but not have enough time to full act on those ideas, and I just end up filling out a document with a title and rough idea of plot/prompt - when I came across this, already written.
Whatever it was meant to be, here it is. Drabbly goodness.