Illusion
By ZionAngel
… …
Rumpelstiltskin sets the tiny glass bottle on the empty space on the shelf, beside dozens of other potions and spells and bits of magic, this more powerful and potent than all the rest combined. He watches as the two strands of hair glow and dance circles around one another. As the magic does its work, the two individual strands slowly dissolve and blend together, until finally the bottle contains a vibrant purple glow of pure true love's magic. He smiles wickedly as it is finally done, as he stares at the magic it took him centuries to realize he needed, and centuries more to capture.
"What are you making?"
The voice, loud and clear and utterly real, makes his heart stop and his blood turn to ice.
Slowly he turns, his mind full of fear and disbelief and wretched, cruel hope. He stares at the figure perched atop his work table.
Belle rolls her eyes. "Oh, don't look at me like that. You know I won't touch anything without your permission." She smiles and sits up straighter, folding her hands in her lap. She watches him expectantly, her legs swinging over the edge of the table and swishing her skirts about.
Still he stares at her, sure this is a dream or one of the queen's vile tricks. Belle sits there on the table, as she did so many times, and even in the dim light she looks happy and patient and kind and as real and alive as the day he met her. Her form is solid, whole, perfect, wearing the same blue dress she wore the day he threw her out. Shadows fall across her body and features just as they should, and strands of her hair shimmer in the candle light. Her eyes are the perfect shade of blue. Finally, she signs.
"Come on, I just want to know what you're working on," she prods gently. "It looks important."
Rumpelstiltskin stumbles forward. He was certain he was awake just moments ago. The queen could never hope to recreate the color of her eyes or the quirk of her smile so perfectly.
The apparition, the ghost, the dream, his Belle, gives him the smirk of a woman who is unimpressed and unafraid. "You know, if you would actually teach me magic instead of being so secretive, I could actually help you out and let you get more done." She tilts her head to the side, and her smile turns genuine. "Please?"
His heart still does not beat, tense and waiting, and tears of joy and sorrow both well up in his eyes, laying in wait until they know which one will be shed. His hand trembles violently as he lifts it, inching forward as if toward a roaring flame. After an eternity, he is close enough, and brushes his fingertips against her arm.
The woman before him dissipates like smoke, and in a heartbeat the form that was so real is gone.
Rumpelstiltskin's heart breaks all over again, and the tears of sorrow fall. He stares around the room, trying to understand, trying to find the source, and finally, his eyes fall on his newest bottle of magic.
… …
He tries his very best to ignore the apparition, to will it away into nonexistence. It is not real – she is not real, he knows – and for several days he hopes that if he simply ignores her, the magic will grow tired of him and leave him in peace.
"When was the last time you ate?" the illusion asks, leaning on his work table mere inches from him. "I know you haven't slept in three days."
For being a random and unintended consequence, this magic is very thorough. It does not simply project an image and voice, does not merely replicate soulful eyes and kind smiles. It mimics the lover herself, enough to drive him near mad.
Belle – and he cannot help but forget what she is not, every time, and it tears at his heart a little each time he remembers – stares intently at him and rests her chin on her hand. "You may not have to eat or sleep to survive, but you do much better when you actually take care of yourself. And you're a great deal more pleasant to be around, too."
He says nothing, and tries not to look at her sweet, patient face. He moves around to the side of the table, fetching ingredients as he mixes a potion. He tries so very, very hard to shove down the pain and sorrow and heartache. But the magic pushes on, persistent, and makes it all but impossible.
She smiles and follows him around the table, her fingers trailing along the edge. "Come on," she says with a bright, cheerful smile. "Let's go downstairs, and I'll make you lunch, and you can tell me all about what you're working on."
He stares down at the glass vials in his hands. Surely if this magic is willful enough and clever enough to create such a heart-wrenchingly real apparition all on its own, it must be smart enough to take a hint and give up.
"All right then, I'll do the talking. I'll tell you about the book I'm reading."
His hands tremble, and he sets the vial down too hard. His breathing is ragged and shallow, and hearing that sweet, patient, persistent voice again is doing horrible things to him.
She sighs and steps ever closer to him, looking hurt at being ignored. "Honestly, Rumpelstiltskin, you can't keep on ignoring me forever. Why won't you come downstairs and talk with me?"
His heart breaks and his mind snaps. "Because you're not real!" He lashes out at the illusion, striking his hand wildly through her to shatter the magic and be rid of her.
He stares at the empty space, then up to the row of bottles in his cabinet, his heart full of rage and betrayal and loathing. He has had enough.
He throws open the cabinet doors and snatches the bottle, glowing steady with magic that is far, far too powerful. With a thought, he transports himself to the secret cavern hidden deep beneath the castle. The tiny room has no doors, its walls lined from floor to ceiling with brick, the only light coming from glowing orbs of magic.
His dagger lies on a small pedestal in the center of the room. He sets the vial of True Love beside it.
The tiny room is so far beneath the castle, protected by so much magic, that he knows the vial will remain untouched here. And, more importantly, its magic will not be able to reach him.
… …
It is over a year later when he returns to the cavern to retrieve it. The Curse is nearly done, finely and meticulously crafted. It needs only one final ingredient, the safeguard that will ultimately free him from it and let him find Baelfire.
When he returns from the hidden cavern, vial in hand, Belle is waiting for him.
She sits across from him at the table this time, watching in silence as he unrolls the parchment on which the curse is written. She tilts her head, as if to read the curse for herself.
"You really want to do this?" she murmurs after a while. "Curse the whole of our world? For what?"
"I have wrongs to right." He answers simply. It is almost a comfort to have this illusion, for once. He has so missed her melodic voice and lovely face. And, false though she may be, it is still his Belle before him.
"With a curse?"
He opens the vial and slowly, carefully, lets a single drop of the magic fall onto the parchment. He watches as it seeps into the paper, making the whole thing glow for a moment before it settles in, as though it was never there.
"It's complicated. I have to do this."
"You don't have to do anything." He looks up at her, sees the worry in her eyes. Belle worried and fretted over him a few times while she was with him, when he spent too long staring mournfully at his spinning wheel, when he went days without sleep, when he came home from a deal looking grim and cold. He always wanted to kiss that expression from her lips, kiss away her worry, though he did not quite recognize that urge in the beginning.
He reminds himself that there is no Belle, and no worry to kiss away. But the magic continues its illusion nonetheless.
"Whatever this is, it's eating you inside. It's tormenting you. Why not just let it all go and free yourself from it, whatever it is? Why not find peace with it and move on? You can find happiness if you let yourself."
"Not without you," he whispers, and carefully rolls up the strip of parchment.
"But wouldn't you like that? Wouldn't you like to leave all this behind? Forget about all the deals and power and just find a quiet little town somewhere to live out our lives? Have children, grow old together?"
He tucks the parchment away in its little bottle. "It's just not an option."
"You could have had that with me. We could have been happy together."
He turns his back on her, and takes the vial back to its hiding place beneath the castle.
… …
He fetches the vial once again as soon as he discovers dearest Prince Charming has escaped the queen's grasp. It takes exactly no effort to deduce where she will send him. The woman is entirely too predictable, and he knows that will ultimately be a weakness he can exploit.
He transports himself to the Infinite Forest, the vial of True Love tucked safely in his pocket. He finds a rather comfortable spot on a fallen, moss-covered log, and waits for the forest's magic to send the imposter prince back to him again.
Belle waits with him.
The lovely illusion wears her blue dress, as usual, this time covered with the green and gold cloak he made for her, long ago. She looks so very lovely in it, with her hair cascading over one shoulder, the hood framing her face like a halo. As it always does, the illusion sends wrenching pains of longing and loss and love through his heart.
She wanders her way through the small clearing, her eyes looking in wonder at the trees around her, and the way the leaves high above let stippled bits of sunlight shine through. She smiles, and looks completely, heart-breakingly beautiful.
"This is such a lovely forest," she says softly. "Everything is such a wonderful bright green. It's so different from the forests where I grew up." She smiles at him, and wanders over, hopping up onto the log next to him. "This is just the sort of place I would love to have a little home. Something nice and quiet, tucked away where we could raise a family. Not in the Infinite Forest, of course. But someplace very much like this, I think."
Rumpelstiltskin smiles at the thought. For a little while, as he waits for Charming, he lets himself dream of what that might have been like, to have let Belle love him, and love her back, and to find a little corner of happiness in this world, together.
… …
Mr. Gold slips quietly into his shop, heading straight to the office in back. Even though he has timed everything as precisely as his mind can without magic to aid him, there is still no time to waste. The Queen or the Savior could come after him at any moment to steal back the magic they foolishly think they need to save their boy. Or, if the boy is already safe again, they might see fit to punish him or take his powers for themselves or otherwise prevent him from doing what he needs to do. And he has not come this far, has not plotted and dealed and prepared for centuries, has not turned whole worlds inside out, only to be thwarted when he is so close to accomplishing his goal. He will not let them stop him when he is so very close to finding his own son.
He finds the key to the golden egg, opens it, and takes out the vial, still perfectly safe after all this time. He shivers s he feels the magic within it. There are bits and pieces of magic throughout his shop and home, hidden in one treasure or another from the old world. But those are weak little remnants, with barely enough magic to transport an object from one side of a room to the other. This vial of True Love in his hands is pure, powerful magic, and he remembers just how much he missed it, as he would an old friend.
The faint sound of the bell from the front door pulls him from his trance, and he curses himself for forgetting to lock the door behind him. He shoves the vial in his pocket and hides the egg, mentally regrouping and preparing himself for whoever now stands in his way.
"Excuse me, are you Mr. Gold?" The voice belongs to neither the Queen nor the Savior, and at that he relaxes a little. It is only a nuisance to be rid of, a desperate soul with no sense of proper timing.
He reaches for his cane and turns to face the unwanted intruder. "Yes I am. But I'm afraid the shop's closed."
He freezes where he stands, his breath catching in his throat. He would fall over if not for his hand braced on the work table. His mind reels, grasping for understanding and comprehension, and returning to the vial in his pocket. He was so caught up in his goal that he completely forgot what this magic did, what wonderful, wretched side effects it had. The sight of her, his precious, sweet, beautiful Belle, all but rips his beating heart from his chest.
"I was, uh, I was told to – to find you, and tell you that Regina locked me up. Does that mean anything to you?"
But then, this is not the confident, carefree, gently prodding woman the magic has shown him before. Both her words and eyes tell him she does not know him, and she seems confused and lost and frightened. Her hair and skin and clothes are not perfect as they always were when the magic showed her to him before. She is shivering slightly in dingy, plain clothes and an ill-fitting jacket. No, this is not a Belle the magic would present to him.
Slowly, his mind catches up with her words, processes them, and the world comes tumbling down in pieces around him. And he shouldn't let himself hope, shouldn't put himself in a position to be devastated and lose her all over again, but his lonely, broken heart can't help it.
Slowly, he stumbles toward her, barely able to hold his cane, and reaches out a shaking hand to her.
His hand touches her arm, and she does not disappear. He squeezes gently, and feels solid flesh and blood beneath his fingers. Deep inside, some hollow, miserable part of him finds life again.
"You're real," he whispers, and yes, there is a true soul behind those eyes, not a lovely illusion. "You're alive. She did this to you?" He never planned to leave the Queen particularly well off when this was all over, if she ended up alive at all. But now he will be sure to give her all the attention her evil, sinister, black heart deserves.
"I was told you'd protect me." Belle looks up, meeting his eyes shyly but bravely. And the look is so beautifully Belle, the request so very humble, and his heart beats again. It finally hits him like a train that she is alive and real and here, that she is his again and he has a second chance, and he pulls her into his arms and vows never to let her go again. "Oh yes. Yes I'll protect you."