The girl in the town looked familiar.
No, it wasn't familiarity that made Rumplestiltskin do a double take. It was the feeling, settling deep in his gut, that he had found her, that Regina had lied, that the world was good once more.
It wasn't familiarity. It was love, pure and strong, lancing through his heart and telling him that Belle was alive.
It was just a muddy little hamlet on the outskirts of nowhere, barely worthy of a name though they'd given it one anyway.
Pigdon.
Rumple never would have found himself in such a place if he hadn't had business there. A local landowner had wanted to make a deal, but it had turned out to be beneath his notice. The man had nothing he wanted, nothing he could use. So he'd found his way to the rundown little tavern in the center of town to have a drink and a meal before heading home to the Dark Castle, so stark and lonely since the loss of his caretaker that he'd all but started avoiding it.
He'd been sitting at a table in the corner, the patrons of the dingy bar avoiding his gaze, when he spotted her. She was a tiny little thing. If he stood up she'd probably barely reach his shoulder and Rumplestiltskin had never been a tall man. The first thing that caught his eye was her hair, tumbling curls of chestnut and burnished copper that glowed in the low light of the tavern's lanterns. It was a familiar color, a cherished color, one that still haunted his dreams.
And then she turned, her face emerging from shadow, and Rumplestiltskin's breath caught in his chest, his heart stopped, he blinked repeatedly, trying to clear the image from his mind. It's not as though he hadn't dreamed of her before, hallucinated her in his every day life. There were times when he was certain he'd seen her, caught a whiff of her scent from around a corner in his castle. There were times when he made his way to the Great Hall and was certain he would see her there, lounging on a chaise and whiling away the day with her nose stuck in a book.
He was wrong of course, every time. Belle was dead. She was long gone. She was butchered by her own father and it was all his fault.
But this time, the image didn't fade, no matter how he blinked and shook his head, trying to dispel the phantom.
Belle was before him, wandering around a dirty tavern with a smile on her lips, her hand trailing over the shoulders of the usual patrons as she delivered mugs of ale.
She was beautiful, of course she was. Her eyes were just as bright blue as he remembered; her cheeks flushed pink in the warmth of the tavern, her lithe figure on display in a low cut bodice. How had she ended up here, in some backwoods watering hole fall from her father's castle and everything she knew?
The answer was clearly before him. That this wasn't Belle at all. It's a trick of the light, a twist of his addled mind, it's the ale, it's anything but true. Belle is dead. She's been dead for months, and no matter how hard he searches he can never find her nor bring her home.
The girl turned again and he was struck by just how uncanny the resemblance was. He didn't even need to squint, to tilt his head, to pretend. She is Belle's twin.
It must be a trick. Someone had cast a glamour on a barmaid in an effort to drive him mad. He would suspect Regina capable of such a thing for no more reason that to toy with him.
Now that he knew the source of his torment, Rumple set about dismantling it. A quick twitch of his fingers and he could feel the magic coursing out of him, wrapping around the girl, dissolving any trickery. But when she turned toward him, her mouth forming a slight O at the phantom feel of his magic, it was still Belle's face looking back at him.
She shook off the shiver of magic, heading to another table and depositing a round of drinks for the rowdy crowd there. One of the men at the table grabbed at the girl's skirts and she slapped his hand away, her smile never faltering.
Rumplestiltskin couldn't wrap his head around what was happening. Belle was dead. He looked for her. He saw her grave, plain as day. And even if Belle were still alive, she wouldn't be here at a tavern in the middle of nowhere. She'd be home, with her father. She'd be off on an adventure. She'd have come back to him. She wouldn't have disappeared to be a tavern wench.
Despite himself, Rumple can't help but let himself believe that for once the universe has been kind to him, has brought him here on this night so he could find her again.
With that uncharacteristically optimistic thought in mind, he stood up and crossed the small room, stopping just behind her.
"Belle," he said, his voice coming out croaky and hoarse.
The girl turned around, her breath hitching to find a strange looking man so close behind her.
"Excuse me?" she asked, stepping back from him. Her voice is as familiar as her face, light and musical with an accent he wouldn't soon forget, one entirely out of place in this part of the Enchanted Forest.
Perhaps if she'd had a different voice, an accent more suited to the swampy area and the course tongues assailing him from the gathered natives, he'd accept that he was mistaken and leave. But she sounds like Belle.
"Belle," he repeated, more fervently this time. "You're real. You're alive."
The girl raised an eyebrow at him, bracing one hand against her hip.
"Come again?" she asked. "Who's Belle?"
And just like that it was as though someone had let the air out of Rumple's lungs. He sighed, taking a step away from her, feeling ancient and weary. Of course he'd been mistaken.
"I'm sorry," he said after a moment, shaking his head. "You just remind me of someone. Someone I used to know."
The girl rolled her eyes. "I always remind men of someone," she said laughingly. "It's how I make my tips."
Rumplestiltskin just nodded, retreating back to the table he'd occupied all evening. He should leave, but he found himself entranced watching the girl – not Belle – as she worked. Her smile was brilliant as she flitted from table to table. On one occasion, a drunken man had pulled her down on to his lap, his hands straying to the ties on her bodice. Rumple had the immediate urge to protect her, to stop the vagrant from assaulting her, but before he could even stand the man had been slammed face first into the tabletop, the tiny girl's elbow buried in the base of his neck, that brilliant smile never wavering. After a few choice words, she let the man up, sputtering through a mouth full of blood, his nose clearly shattered.
She could certainly take care of herself.
Before he knew it, the tavern was all but empty, just the staff, a few stragglers too far in their cups to be easily roused into leaving, and him. The barman gave a nod in his direction and the girl sighed, wiping her hands on her apron before heading Rumple's way.
The girl had mostly avoided his corner of the pub all evening. He couldn't fault her for that. He was off putting under the best of circumstances and he'd accosted her calling her by the wrong name. Now he'd spent the rest of the evening staring at her and despite his best efforts, he knew she'd caught him looking.
"Can I get you anything else?" she asked, glancing down at his half drunk flagon of ale. He'd barely touched it since it was last filled.
He was entranced by her face, so strikingly similar to Belle's. It was impossible that this wasn't her and yet there was no recognition in her eyes. It wasn't a glamour, but perhaps it was something else. With a start, he realized he was staring again and had failed to answer her question.
"Look," the girl said with a sigh, thunking down a pitcher on the rough-hewn table. "No one else will say anything because they're all afraid of you, but you've sat here all evening, barely touching your drink, and putting off the people who would order something. You're flat bad for business."
He took a measured drink of his now warm ale as if to prove a point, grimacing at the flat taste.
"I'm taking my time, dearie," he said with a trill. "I think you could appreciate that in a man."
A smirk crossed her face and before he knew it, the girl had let out a loud guffaw. It was so different from Belle's tinkling little laugh that it startled him. It was completely unexpected.
"You're good," she said shaking a finger at him before taking a seat on the bench opposite him and crossing her arms against the table. Rumple sat back, away from her. He hadn't expected her to sit with him. He had expected her to run from the strange man staring at her with strange eyes.
"You're not afraid of me," he said wonderingly. It wasn't a question.
The girl just shrugged. "You can't be any worse than the usuals who come into this place stinking of pig shit and sweat. At least you look clean. That's a nice change."
There was only one other person who had shown such a lack of fear when faced with Rumplestiltskin. The same person whose face he now saw before him.
"Don't you know who I am?" he asked with a flourish.
"You're a sorcerer," she said plainly. "The others, they, uh, they say you can do almost anything, grant any wish, for a price."
"Ah," he said, setting his flagon down on the worn table. "And what is it you'd like to deal for?"
She gave him a look, one that said she wasn't playing his game.
"I don't make deals," she said. "I forge my own way."
No one decides my fate but me.
Rumple shook his head, dispelling old memories. They wouldn't serve him here.
"A tavern serving girl has nothing to wish for?" he prompted. "I find that hard to believe."
The girl just raised an eyebrow at him.
"A tavern serving girl is smart enough not to trust magic to solve her problems," she countered. "All magic comes with a price."
Rumple lost the grip on his flagon and it dropped to the table with a heavy thump, ale sloshing over the sides and trickling down onto the straw covered floor below.
"What did you say?" he asked in a rough whisper.
The girl's eyes widened, glancing from the flagon to Rumple and back.
"Magic comes with a price," she said again. "Everyone knows that."
Rumple's heartbeat slowed in his chest. It didn't mean anything. It didn't mean she remembered. It didn't even mean she was really Belle.
"You'd be surprised at how many people ignore that sage advice," he said finally, clearing his throat.
"Well, not me," she said confidently.
"Well, forget magic," he countered. "If you could have anything, free of price, what would it be?"
She looked pensive for a moment, tapping a finger against her full bottom lip, before answering.
"To leave this place and never look back," she said finally. "But that requires a fair bit of gold I don't have at the moment. So here I am."
"Well perhaps they didn't tell you all the stories, dearie," he said, leaning in conspiratorially. "But I, um, make gold."
The girl's eyes widened. "Are you offering me some?" she said gamely.
"Oh, no," Rumple disagreed. "I don't give anything away for free."
"There's that price," she said with a smile, one so familiar and so dear to him. One he thought he'd never see again.
"What's your name?" he blurted out. She hadn't responded to Belle, but he had to know for sure. Perhaps she'd simply taken a memory potion and erased him from her mind. He'd given such a thing to Snow White not long ago.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
"Why should I give a strange sorcerer my name?" she asked. "Who knows what you could do with that kind of information."
"A deal then," he proposed. "A name for a name."
She eyed him critically. "I don't make deals, remember?"
"But this is a harmless one," he said with a shrug. "No price at all. Rumplestiltskin, at your service."
He bowed at the waist, an awkward thing with the table between them, and the girl gave a snort.
"Call me Lacey," she said after a moment. "Everyone else does."
Rumple didn't miss her odd phrasing, but he let it slide.
"Lacey," he said with a nod, letting the name roll around his mouth. It didn't fit her, not at all. There was magic in names, and even if he hadn't noticed the cagey way she'd revealed the name, he'd know it was false. "A pleasure to meet you."
A tavern girl with a false name bearing the face of his one true love. She was an enigma, a puzzle Rumplestiltskin had to solve. He was staring again.
She bit down on her lip, a slow smile crossing her face. The expression was so familiar, a sly look he'd seen on Belle's face so many times before, usually right before she was about to tease him about something. His heart thumped in his chest, his palms suddenly inexplicably sweaty. This was Belle. Somehow, some way, she had survived. She was real. She had to be.
The only way he would know for sure is if he could get her back home, to the Dark Castle. If he could bring her to his laboratory he'd have everything he needed to discern just what the hell had happened to her, why she couldn't remember him, and why she was here of all places.
"Come to my castle," he pleaded suddenly, without warning.
Lacey sat back, her face suddenly wary.
"I don't do that anymore," she countered. "I'll serve you your ale, but you'll keep your hands to yourself. There's no price on that.
His heart twisted at the look on her face, that such a beautiful creature had ever been forced to sell her body. He wouldn't ask that of her.
With a concerted effort he slipped the mask of the dealmaker back in to place. He couldn't afford to traipse around like a lovelorn fool.
"I'm not in the habit of paying for that, dearie," he shot back. "I just find myself in need of a caretaker for my rather large estate. I can take you away from here, offer you adventure, a new life. Isn't that what you want?"
Lacey leaned forward, crossing her arms against the table. "And what do you get in return?" she asked with an arch of one perfect brow. "A maid?"
He flinched at the term. Belle was his maid. Belle was his love. She might very well be Belle, and he would never require her to clean for him again.
"Not a maid," he countered. "A…companion."
"A companion for your rather large estate?" Lacey asked, giving him a once over. "Is that some kind of euphemism?"
Rumplestiltskin was rendered momentarily speechless. She was certainly more straightforward than his Belle.
Lacey snorted out a laugh. "How large are we talking?" she asked, cocking her head, her eyes dropping as though she could see anything through the wooden table and Rumple's trousers. Even so he felt exposed, his hands moving to clasp in his lap.
"Would you like to come with me or not," he asked impatiently.
"I've already said I don't make deals."
"It's not a deal, dearie," he said with a flourish. "It's a job offer."
Lacey stared at him for a long moment, her intelligent blue eyes calculating.
"Alright then," she agreed. "But I want a contract in writing. I want to read it over before I agree to anything."
Rumple looked up at her in surprise.
"How do you know how to read?"
Lacey narrowed her eyes at him. "What kind of question is that?"
"In my experience, tavern girls stuck in shit towns in the middle of nowhere aren't known for their literacy."
Lacey looked uncomfortable for a moment. "Well I know how to read," she spat. "Let's leave it at that, shall we?"
Rumplestiltskin shrugged. Curiouser and curiouser. Lacey could read, her accent hailed from far away, she looked so damn much like Belle.
Once he got her home he could be certain.
With that in mind, he swept his hand through the air in a graceful arc, a roll of parchment appearing within.
"Here you are, dearie," he said with a smirk, brandishing the contract at her. "If you agree to my terms, sign your name at the bottom."
Lacey took the parchment from his outstretched hand, taking an infuriatingly long time to read through it. Eventually she reached the end, giving a slight nod.
"And you'll adhere to the terms of our deal?" she asked him.
Rumple nodded. "You have my word. I never break a deal."
Lacey nodded again, before picking up the feather quill Rumple had summoned and signing her name at the bottom of the page.
Rumple quickly rolled up the parchment, disappearing it into thin air.
"I hope your employer didn't require two weeks notice," he said with a toothy grin. "Shall we?"
He stood and offered her his hand. With a grin, Lacey took it. A tingle ran up Rumple's spine at his first contact with the girl, her tiny hand fitting in to his so perfectly.
A moment later they had disappeared from the tavern in a swirl of purple smoke leaving nothing but a few gold coins in their wake.