Author's note: This fic explores Mother Gothel's thoughts before she dies. It is unusual, I know, but I noticed that her thoughts and feelings were never entirely explained in the movie. I mean, we all know her motivations for abducting and locking Rapunzel in the tower, but I believe she would never have taken care of her the way she did if she didn't love her in some kind of twisted way. Here is my vision of her feelings.
Disclaimers: I don't own. No, really. I wish to, but nope.
Mother knows best
Everything will be just as before… She stands there, looking at me with a fierce determination that I have never seen before.
Before that good-for-nothing, deceiving thief entered her life, before he stole what was rightly mine.
I had her love, before, I had all of her. She breathed, sang, lived, just for me. Every time I needed her, I knew I would find her here, in this tower.
This little, delicate, and yet strangely tough flower. I never thought, before taking her, that I could be loved by someone like her, that I could really be a Mother. And this child, with her impossible green eyes, looked at me and saw the Mother she no longer had, the Mother I took her away from.
She gave all of her to me, never asking for anything in return, and yet demanding, without knowing, that I also gave back something to her.
It is not possible not to love her. It is not possible not to want her beside me all the time.
I thought it was the hair. I thought that all I wanted was a forever of youth and beauty, I thought that everything I was doing, I was doing for that solely purpose.
But, as years passed by, I began to realize that I, too, was alone. In my research for eternal life, I had given up so many things, so many people… Every time I stood there, at the base of the tower, waiting for her to loose her hair and let me up, I was startled to realize that she was all I had left.
I became jealous of her. Jealous of the fact that she was so naturally young, that she didn't need to sing to a flower in order to keep her age, jealous of her naïveté, of the trust she still bestowed on me, even though I didn't deserve it.
I was jealous that someone could find this tower, and the precious treasure it hid, and that, someday, all that I had would have been taken away from me.
I knew that, if that happened, the love this flower had for me would have been replaced by hatred and disgust.
And now you are here, before me, promising me that everything would be the same as before, if I let you sing for that useless thief.
No, my little flower. Nothing would be the same. Not now that you know the truth.
I will never hear again your: 'I love you more' whispered into my bosom; I will never see your eyes sparkle in anticipation for my nut soup.
You have known life, you have seen that the world is so much more vast, beautiful, and ugly, and scary, and amazing, than your old Mother will ever be.
I love you most, flower, even if you are never going to believe it anymore.
So, go, heal your beau. Sing for him like you have never sung for me.
And then, it will be just me and you, in a secluded place, where no one is ever going to find you again, where no one is ever going to taint your beautiful innocence with tales of love.
I will be your Mother again, forever young, as you have always known me.
Sing for him. And then leave him here, healed and yet broken, for he will never have the privilege of your love again.
But, what is he doing? No! … He prefers to die than to leave you with me.
He has cut your hair, and I'm feeling all my years coming back to me in full force. I'm an old, rotten woman, I have never realized it. You cannot see me like this: the wrinkles, the white hair, these knotty hands are not the ones that used to brush your golden hair. This old rug is not your Mother.
Good-bye, little flower, there is nothing worth living for, when I no longer have your love, when I no longer have my youth.
Rest assured that I have loved you, the only way I knew how, and I still do, even now that I see the ground nearing.
The end.
What do you think? Please, let me know...