Okay so I promise I will post the other parts of my other Tangled fics eventually. I write slower than molasses going uphill in January, so bear with me. (Besides, the computer they're saved on is out of commission at the moment.) But I hope you enjoy this in the meantime.
Eugene went back to the tower once and only once.
He wasn't sure why. He was already having a bad day, and going back to the place where you'd died was no way to make yourself feel better.
The tower was different now. He could tell just by looking at it. The first time he'd seen it, its bright white bricks were awash in sunshine - so much so that they almost seemed to give off their own light. The second time he saw it, it stood darker and seemingly taller under a stormy sky.
That should have been his first clue that all was not well within its walls. Rapunzel brought light wherever she was, and the tower was dark. But when her hair came tumbling down like a real, tangible ray of sunlight, he'd somehow thought everything was going to be fine.
Now as he looked at it, it was as tall and dark as ever, and every bit as terrifying. But it was dead. Eugene knew what it was like to be dead, and this tower was what he had once been.
There was no wind to swirl around it and make it breathe. The flowers on the windowsill were dried-out shadows with no one to care for them. There was no sunshine beating down on it or bursting from within. It was funny how the picture of death the tower had become described his past life better than it did his actual death.
Eugene chuckled at this as he mounted the steps - there was no sunbeam for him to climb up this time. Inside the tower room looked exactly as he expected, but it still stole the breath from his lungs.
There was the eighteen years worth of paint on the walls. There was the shattered mirror with its shards of silver scattered across the floor. There was the long knife neither of them had bothered to even kick into the corner, and there was his own blood dried onto the stones.
There was the seventy feet of plain old ordinary beautiful brown hair twining through the dust that dulled the tower's rainbow colours.
There was the stairpost he'd leaned against and the chain that had kept him there.
The chain was open - it hadn't been locked in months. Absently, he wondered what Rapunzel had done with the key. She'd had to run down the stairs and rummage through Gothel's cloak (she hadn't liked that very much) before she could free him.
He didn't touch anything. He didn't want to. He wondered again why he had come.
Maybe he was trying to figure out why a slightly crazy girl with glowing hair had fallen in love with a guy like him - a thief, a liar, a rascal…
Maybe he was trying to figure out why he'd ended up at her tower at all. He could recall the events and even the choices he'd made that led up to it, but that only answered how he got there, not why.
Or maybe he was just afraid. Afraid that the tower was not dead but merely sleeping. Maybe he had to make sure that it hadn't woken up again.
He left a little while later, leaving a pair of footprints in the dust as the only proof he'd ever been.
He made it back to the palace by nightfall, stopping only to pick Rapunzel a bouquet of daisies. He'd always heard that women liked red roses, but there was something about the bright yellow and white of daisies that suited her. Maybe someday he'd get her yellow roses, he mused, but red ones were just too dark for her.
It was a good idea to get the flowers. The second Rapunzel caught sight of him, she dashed up to bombard him with questions and reprimands. It was all "Eugene! Where have you been?" and "I've been looking everywhere for you!" and "You missed dinner!"
"I'm sorry about all that, but I got you these," he said quickly, holding out the flowers.
Rapunzel's eyes lit up for a moment, but she snatched her hands back. "It doesn't take all afternoon to buy flowers," she said suspiciously.
"Ah, but see, I didn't buy them," he said, rather smug.
She remained unimpressed, but a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "You stole flowers?"
Eugene blinked. "No!" he cried. "I mean I picked them myself."
Rapunzel grinned wide before assuming a serene expression. "Then I accept," she said, and took them from his hands.
They fell in step, side by side as they meandered across the courtyard. Rapunzel had her face buried in the daisies, but Eugene knew it was her smile - hidden though it was - that made the night seem so bright.
He heard her gasp and she pulled on his arm, towing him over to the garden. "Look!" she cried. "Fireflies!" He stumbled along after her and came to a realization.
Rapunzel's hair used to glow, yes, but the light she brought everywhere came from somewhere else. It came from somewhere deep in her soul, the part of her that had always been free; the part of her that even the walls of a tower couldn't hide away.
There was a time when he lived in the dark, but a drop of sun fell from the heavens and saved his life. And maybe… maybe the tower was a reminder. A reminder that he couldn't live without the light, and a little bit of pure, warm sunshine could make even the worst day better.