She wasn't quite sure how she had gotten to this point.
Well, no, that was incorrect.
She remembered it all too well.
It all started with a conversation with Ruby about the state of finances at the library.
"We're in trouble," Belle had said. "Serious trouble. If we don't manage to bring in another $3000 by the end of the month, we're going to have to close down."
"Seriously, Belle? That's so unfair," Ruby had muttered. But then she had gotten that look. That one that Belle knew not to trust. Usually it resulted in her getting into some sort of trouble. Like the time Ruby convinced her to sneak into the cannery in the middle of the night just because they could. Or the time she attempted to drink Ruby under the table. That had ended with Belle waking up the next morning with a headache so bad she couldn't see straight. It had been days before she could eat more than crackers.
But somehow Ruby always managed to convince her to go along with her hare-brained plans.
"I've got an idea," Ruby had said and Belle remembered groaning.
"Whatever it is, I'm not interested." Belle had held her hands up to ward her friend off. She should have known better.
"Oh Belle. This is simple. That house up on the hill," she rather proudly had proclaimed.
"The house…on the hill…"
"Belle…not just any house. Every Halloween there's a contest. The couple who manages to spend all of Halloween night in the house gets the prize. It's up over $5000 this year. No one has ever won."
Belle had rolled her eyes. "You're forgetting one thing, Ruby…I don't have a husband. Or a boyfriend. Or even a male friend. Except Leroy. And it's not like anyone would believe he was my boyfriend." Leroy was sweet, a recovering alcoholic who Belle had somehow managed to take under wing. But the gruff man was clearly no one's significant other. The little known truth was that he had eyes for one of the nuns. A nun, of all people.
"Not Leroy," Ruby had said and the accompanying look of horror made her laugh.
"And let's face it, Ruby. I need all that money. Half wouldn't be enough. If we're even $500 short the mayor will shut us down…"
"So you need someone who doesn't need the money!" Ruby's voice had been bright, excited.
"Everyone needs the money," Belle had started to say.
"Not Mr. Gold…"
And so here she was. Standing outside Storybrooke's very own haunted mansion with Storybrooke's very own monster. Oh sure, they called it The Dark One's Place, told stories about how it once belonged to a mad scientist who thought himself an evil sorcerer, scared kids with little pranks if they dared approach the cast iron fence that surrounded it. But really, in the daytime, it just looked like a rundown old house that had long since been abandoned, that no one cared about. She almost felt sorry for the structure.
"Are you sure about this one?" His voice was soft and almost concerned. She never really thought she'd see this side of the pawnbroker, the man who basically owned the soul of the town. But he had amazed her since she had first stumbled into his place of business and begged him to help.
"Can I help you, dearie?" She had startled at the voice and had turned to find Gold smirking at her like a wolf about to eat his prey. She had never come into the pawnshop before and looking around herself, she really had no idea why. The first edition books alone were worth a visit.
"I…" was all she had managed to get out at first, her mouth gone dry when faced with the man himself. The Dragon, some called him. Monster, The Terror of Storybrooke…Asshole. The names for him were as wide and varied as the residents of their little town.
"Ah yes…I suppose you want a deal." He had given her a dramatic sigh at the words.
She had almost laughed.
Almost…but not quite. She wasn't quite sure anyone laughed at the man who owned most of the town.
"I guess…maybe…" Her voice had trailed off and she had come close to walking off.
"Oh do stay, Miss French," Gold had said and at that she had turned back to him, jaw set. "Just tell me what you want and we'll see if I'm amenable to any such deal."
It hadn't sounded so bad when he spoke the words. He had sounded almost, dare she admit it, charming. She couldn't say that there wasn't anything attractive about the pawnbroker. He wore elegant suits, moved with a grace that someone who required a cane should never have. Almost…feline. Quiet and lithe, with no spare movements.
She had nodded. "There's this haunted house…"
"Really now," he had interrupted her with.
"Just…let me get the words out?" He had waved one hand her way, his lips quirking up slightly. She had taken a deep breath and pressed on. "The library…I know you love books. I see so many of them here. But…sorry…the library. We're rapidly running out of funds and the mayor is going to shut us down and we can't just…your son…please?"
She had watched his eyebrows raise as her voice had trailed off. "Ah yes, The Dark One's Place."
"Yes that one…"
She had known he was going to make her spell it out, beg even. "The couple who stays the night wins a large sum. $5000." She had taken a deep breath, couldn't quite meet his eyes.
"And you thought of me?" She hadn't been sure if the words were incredulous or annoyed, maybe a little bit of both.
"Well…" She hadn't, not really. Ruby had, after all. Gold was rich. Probably the richest person in town, rolling in more money than even the mayor was. If anyone could do this thing without needing to split the cash, it was Gold. "You wouldn't need the money…" she had ventured forth with.
"So you want me to accompany you to some ridiculous haunted house and then what? You get to keep all the money?"
"It doesn't sound good when you say it like that," Belle had muttered. "Nevermind…this is…"
"Now now, not so fast." He had somehow managed to step forward and thrust his cane in front of her, stopping her from the headlong run out of his pawn shop she had been planning. "What exactly is in it for me?"
She hadn't thought of that. Well, she had. She had nothing to offer him. She was a mediocre cook at best, though she did make some damned fine chocolate chip cookies. She could clean pretty well, even though she hated it. She had nothing to barter with, nothing worth anything to anyone but herself. Even the necklace her mother had given her before she passed away wasn't worth anything but the memories. "A night with me?" The words had come out on a nervous laugh.
"Miss French." She had been sure she'd surprised him.
"Oh God, I didn't mean it like that…" She had let the words trail off. She was making a mess of the entire damned thing.
He had paused than and when she had finally met his eyes, she had been surprised by what she was sure was a bit of humor. "I'll do it," he had said.
"I'm sure," she said. And she meant it. They had hammered out a decent enough deal. Well, a ridiculous one really and Belle still wasn't quite sure why the pawnbroker had agreed to it. Everyone thinking the prettiest girl in town is dating me? Sounds well worth it, Miss French. She still remembered blushing at his words and she still wasn't sure what exactly he was getting out of it.
Maybe embarrassing her.
Maybe making her life a living hell when people saw that she showed up to this thing intending to spend the night with the town monster.
If it saved the library? Well, she supposed it was all worth it.
"I see we have a volunteer!"
Belle took a deep breath and approached the porch in front of the house. Gold hesitated for only a moment, before she reached back and tugged him forward by his hand. As they stepped forward she was surprised he didn't let go of her hand. Was this all part of the game? Maybe. But his grip was just a little too tight and when she looked back at him, she saw him swallow hard.
He's nervous.
Somehow that made her feel better.
"You do," she said. Resolute. She would not back out. This meant too damned much.
A crowd was slowly gathering as she and Gold stepped up onto the porch to stand in front of Victor Whale. He ran the thing every year, always dressed up as Frankenstein's monster, though he called himself Frankenstein and leered at every woman that passed by. She couldn't count the number of bad pickup lines and Have you seen the size of my…she had heard from him. Most weren't directed at her at least. Not since she stomped on his instep the time he got just a little too friendly at the local watering hole.
Victor's gaze briefly fell on her companion before turning away and addressing the crowd. "It seems these two hapless souls have taken on the challenge of The Dark One's Place! Tonight, they will…"
"Oh just get on with it." Gold's voice was sharp and cut through Victor's grandstanding before the crowd.
There was a snicker.
Victor turned his annoyed gaze on Gold. "Fine then." He took a deep breath. "Will the happy couple please step forward then?"
Belle did as he asked, trying to ignore the obvious dig at her choice of companion for this night. She could easily hear the tittering of the crowd the spectacle was quickly attracting. Belle French is dating Gold? Is she that desperate? It was no mystery around town that Belle had been single for a long time. She was content with her books and her friends, but others often looked askance at her. Strange girl, she had heard muttered under the breaths of women twice her age more than once.
Oh how their tongues must be wagging now!
"Now you know the rules," Victor said and there was a strange sort of seriousness to the words. "You must spend the entire night. If you leave before we arrive back here at dawn, you forfeit the prize money. The bedroom's on the second floor." She was sure she saw a wink there and wanted to roll her eyes. Leave it to Victor.
"Right, we know the rules," Gold said, his voice tight.
Belle cocked her head slightly to the side as she studied him.
"Oh just get on with it," Gold muttered.
Victor bowed once and stepped back. The crowd set off quite a roar and Belle turned toward the house, reaching out to grasp Gold's hand. This was it. Just one night. That's all it was. It's not like this was the rest of their lives. They could make it through this.
She took a step forward.
"There's just one thing," Victor said as he held up a hand, forcing her to draw up short, Gold almost running into her.
"Yes?" Belle said and she didn't stop the annoyance from creeping into her voice.
"Well, it is tradition," Victor said and the smile he wore was half amused and half leer. And Belle wasn't really sure if the latter was intended or just a part of Victor's personality. Every smile from him set her just slightly on edge.
"What is tradition?" Gold's voice was sharp, just a little bit dangerous. It was the kind of sound that should have made Victor run for the hills. She didn't know Gold well, certainly not as well as this whole thing indicated, but she'd heard that voice come from him before. And the young man it had been directed at had high-tailed it out of there almost as soon as Gold had started to speak.
"The good luck kiss." Victor leered again and Belle shuddered.
"From you?" She didn't quite mean the words to come out with such obvious horror, but they slipped out nonetheless. She'd walk away now if meant having to allow the man to get that close to her.
Victor shook his head. "Of course not. Haven't you been to this thing before?"
"No…"
"Ah…well, the lucky couple of course!" He bowed slightly as he backed away and suddenly Belle realized what he meant.
The couple would kiss.
She and Gold.
Would kiss.
The hand holding, the pretending to be in love, they had agreed on that. But such intimacy? That they had not agreed on. That hadn't even come up. There had been no reason, so far as either of them could tell. They'd hold hands, get inside and they could spend the rest of the night talking or sleeping or reading or something.
Belle wasn't sure why she thought this would be quite so easy. She glanced at Gold from under her eyelashes, her lower lip between her teeth. He swallowed hard and she was almost sure she saw his eyes flit to her lips.
"We couldn't…" she started to say. We couldn't. We haven't. We're not even…
"It's tradition, sister!" Leroy. Of course. She turned to glare at him. He was standing at the front of the crowd, arms crossed over his stout chest, broad smile on his bearded face.
"We're not into PDA," Belle muttered. It was a lousy excuse and she knew it. But what else could she offer up? This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
"Well, if it is tradition," she heard Gold say and her head snapped up, her eyes wide, searching his. He smirked and stepped closer to her. "We can't buck tradition, dear." And his voice was sweet, almost too sweet.
Damn him.
He did want the town to think she was dating the town monster, after all. And well, this would prove it once and for all wouldn't it?
But…
She tried to hold back her panic. What if she liked it? What if she wanted it? She hadn't spent much time thinking about Gold during her life, but she could admit to herself that he filled out his expensive suits rather nicely and she sometimes wondered if his hair was as soft as it looked.
"Don't be shy," Victor said, his voice too close to them.
Belle let out a nervous laugh. "I'm not used to this."
"Whyever would that be, I wonder?" Victor asked.
And he knew. She knew he knew. She waited for him to call shenanigans on the whole thing, to tell the town she was a dreadful liar and that Gold had somehow been hoodwinked into this thing. Except he hadn't. He had made a deal. Eyes open and everything on the table.
Belle turned to Gold, steeling herself. And before she could make herself think, she grabbed him by the lapels, pulled him forward and let their lips meet.
He froze for a moment, his whole body going stiff in hers, before his lips softened and his arms came up to wrap around her. It was all too brief, she realized as they pulled away. His lips had been soft and dry, the kiss chaste. And all she wanted to do was go back for more.
Oh dear God…she was in trouble.
The crowd had fallen silent. She didn't dare turn and look at them. She didn't want to know what they were thinking, didn't want to see the looks she was likely getting.
"Well, well," Victor said and she turned to see him watching them with eyebrows up. "Perhaps I was wrong."
He stepped back once more, waving an arm at the front door and bowing slightly. "Enter then!" he shouted and the crowd suddenly roared to life. "Enter The Dark One's Place. If you dare." He offered up what could only be described as a German Shepherd crossed with a man suffering with laryngitis and she was about ninety percent sure was supposed to be an evil laugh.
Shaking her head, she reached back out for Gold and found his hand finds hers. She stepped forward, put her hand on the door. Enter at your own risk. The words were scrawled in blood red paint across the door. She hesitated for only a moment and then pushed it open.
There was a pressure there, Unexpected. And then the door creaked open, revealing a house choked with dust. She had only a moment to shiver, icy tendrils of something creeping across her skin, before Gold stepped around her, pulled her inside and shut the door behind them.
What had she gotten herself into?
They spent the first bit of their stay in the house simply wandering the first floor. It was quiet there, almost peaceful. But there was…something...that pervaded the place. A sense of sadness, of time long gone, something lost but never reclaimed. There was nothing specific there that gave her the feeling. Maybe it was just the dust, which coated everything. Maybe it was the way the air was still and stale, the faded wallpaper, the chairs covered in the tattered remains of sheets.
She was staring at one of them when she heard Gold come up behind her, his uneven steps quiet on the faded carpet.
"Belle?" he said and his voice was almost too loud in the room.
She glanced up at him and was surprised when his hand came up to her face, brushing away a tear she didn't even know was there.
"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I don't know what's come over me."
"There's nothing to apologize for." And she saw the same sort of wistful sadness there in his eyes.
"You feel it too." Her voice was almost a whisper, fading away even as the light around them dimmed slightly.
He nodded and she took a deep breath. He reached out a hand then and she placed hers in it, allowing him to draw her close. He was a comfort. She didn't expect that and she wasn't sure, right at that moment, exactly why.
They stood that way for a time, as the light around them faded and the shadows in the room grew, gathering in the corners, spreading slowly across the floor. She shivered and stepped away.
"We should…" The words choked in her throat.
"Go to bed?" There was a sort of sardonic amusement there but she heard something else behind them. Some undefinable thing that made her draw up short and watch him for a moment.
"Yes. I suppose."
Silence fell and one of Gold's hands came up toward her. She wasn't sure his intentions. She'd perhaps never find them out. A loud crack came from somewhere upstairs and they both jumped. She watched Gold's hand constrict almost painfully around his cane as his already precarious balance was thrown off.
Belle ducked. She didn't know why she did it. But she ducked and then stopped, glancing upstairs. "What was that?" The words came out in a whispered rush.
Gold shook his head. "Nothing." At her incredulous look, he pressed on. "Just the house settling." The pitch went up just slightly at the end.
"House do not make that kind of noise when they settle." She didn't mean for the words to come out with such anger behind them.
"I don't know," Gold shot back. "It's probably just kids trying to scare us."
Belle took a deep breath. "Right. Everyone knows we're in here and bound to be scared…"
"Are you scared?" he asked and his voice was strangely gentle.
She bit her lower lip. "Maybe a little."
Gold nodded. "Well, I may not be much, but I'll protect you."
"Against the teenagers of Storybrooke?" He bowed slightly and she found herself strangely charmed by the old worldliness of the gesture. "How gallant," she said with a curtsey.
He leaned in closer to her. "Well, you haven't seen what I'm going to do to them yet." The words were spoken with a slight glint in his eye.
She felt some of the tension leave her. "Come on then. Let's see what they have for us up here." Belle had been told when she entered this contest that the bedroom would be made up. Fresh sheets, a comfortable bed. Apparently the place was only haunted on Halloween night.
It was ridiculous of course, but she couldn't shake that feeling. That something was wrong, that something was there, just biding its time in the shadows, waiting for the sun to finish its descent, waiting for them to climb the stairs.
Waiting.
For what, she didn't know.
But it was there.
And as they climbed the stairs, as she felt the shadows shift around her, felt like she was entering a world she wasn't supposed to be a part of. Looking around her as her hand settled on the bannister, as each step led her further and further to the upper reaches of the house, it looked normal. Nothing was out of place. There were pictures on the wall. Gilt-edged frames with faded photographs that Belle could just barely make out in the fading light.
They arrived at the upper level and she paused, Gold coming up behind her, leaning against the wall to take the weight off his bad foot once he arrived at the top. There were deep lines around his mouth, a furrow between his brow.
"There's something wrong here, isn't there?" She didn't wait for his response. There was no need. She knew. "Victor said the bedroom is this way." She straightened her back as she moved off. But she reached back, just briefly, and squeezed Gold's hand.
They were in this together.
No matter what hell they were about to face.
The bedroom was a neat place. The dust had been cleared off, the bed made up. As if this one room in the house was the only one anyone lived in. She was sure that the committee who created this whole thing had been here that day to freshen the room. She was thankful for that at least. The lack of dust made it feel a little homier.
Even if the lights didn't work.
Which she was sure was by design. Sitting in the room with the lights ablaze would have made the night feel normal. But keeping it dark, keeping it quiet, made all the shadows creep up just that much closer.
"I brought a book." Belle let the words fall into the silence of the room and surprised even herself with a small laugh.
"Whatever for?" Gold asked and she found she liked the sort of gentle amusement there.
"I don't know. It's ridiculous, isn't it? Books. Can't leave home without them."
"I wouldn't have expected anything else from the town librarian."
She gave him a small smile. "Do you want to…"
"You take the bed," he said, waving one hand toward the piece of furniture in question. Belle looked around the room. There was only a small chair, the dresser, a mirror standing in the corner that she wanted to turn away from the room for a reason she couldn't quite explain. She wandered toward it before giving a shudder and turning back to Gold.
"Then where will you…"
"The chair is fine."
"No," she said quickly. "No that won't do. We're supposed to spend the night together. As a couple."
"They won't know." He sounded reasonable but still, it seemed eminently unfair that one should enjoy such a large bed while the other was relegated to a small and rather uncomfortable looking chair.
"Well, I would. The bed is plenty big enough for us both." He raised a hand. She knew he was going to argue, going to point out the flaws in her plan, whatever they might be. "The sooner we go to bed, the sooner we can wake up and be done with this."
Even though she knew that wasn't true.
It was going to be a long night.
Not the least of which was because of that kiss. It hadn't been blazing hot. It hadn't been passionate. But there was a softness there, a sweetness that had been unexpected. And she found, despite her best attempts at forgetting it, that she wanted to feel it again.
He finally nodded and made his slow way to one side of the bed. "This alright?"
Belle nodded. "I sort of sleep in the middle of the bed these days." She shrugged. "It's been a long time since I've shared a bed with anyone."
There was an odd tightness to his face and then he nodded once more. "Me as well." He climbed in and pulled the covers up to his chin, laid back.
She took a deep breath. She could do this. It wasn't like they had to sleep together. Just…sleep together. In the most literal of senses. She could handle one night alone with this man. She could. And in the morning, she would have the money to save her library from the mayor.
As she climbed into bed and pulled the somewhat scratchy blankets over herself, she told herself that was the most important thing. She could get through it.
"You're tense."
She turned over to glare at Gold. "Of course I am," she snapped.
"Because of me?"
"We're in a haunted house," she pointed out.
"It's not…"
The same loud crack from before came again. Closer this time. Belle jumped, sitting up suddenly. Gold's eyes widened.
"It's not?" she said.
"House settling," he muttered, but even he didn't sound convinced of that.
"I don't know how I'm going to sleep." She curled back under the covers.
Gold was silent and Belle tried to stop the shivering that seemed to have begun without her even realizing it. She was surprised when he reached out, put his hand on her arm, a light warmth against her frigid skin.
It calmed her.
She didn't know how, or why. But she heard him murmur a few words about trying to get some rest. And then she felt the world go dark around her.
If she had been even remotely conscious at that moment she might have been suspicious of just how fast she fell asleep.
She wasn't quite sure what had woken her up. Nor how long she had been asleep. Her eyes flew open at something. The sun had set completely now, a full moon shining brightly through the window. Shadows lurked in the corners of the room and nothing looked quite like it should, like there was a haze over everything around her.
There was a heavy weight over her waist and something pressed up against her back. It took a moment of feeling a light breeze rhythmically ghosting over the skin of her neck for her to realize that the weight was Gold's arm. Sometime while they slept he had crawled further across the bed, wrapping himself around her. She felt safe there. She couldn't even lie to herself about that.
But she had to move.
And she didn't even know why.
She needed to get out of bed. The haze shifted around her and then stilled. Like it was waiting for her, leading her, trying to tell her something. She moved just slightly and Gold pulled himself away, rolling onto his back and then his side, facing away from her and falling back into the same deep sleep she had been in before she found herself awake.
A clock rung out somewhere in the house. One…two…twelve rings. The witching hour, Belle realized. That time of night that parents frightened their children with, when ghosts and demons were said to prowl the land and any in their way would be taken, souls sucked out and a shell left behind. It made her want to pull the covers back over her head and hide until morning.
But she didn't. She couldn't. She was sure that she didn't even have complete control over her own body at that moment. And so she slipped out of bed, feet hitting the cold floor, body wracked with shudders.
Then she heard it.
A cry.
No, a sob.
She turned on her heel to look at Gold. He hadn't. "Gold?" she whispered and got no response. He was out cold, though she could see he still breathed at least. When she heard the cry again, she knew it wasn't coming from him.
It was coming from somewhere. Somewhere out in the house. Teenagers, she tried to tell herself. Or Victor and his crew trying to scare her out of the house. She remembered Gold's gallant statement that he would protect her. It seemed he had failed on that account and she shook her head, taking a few steps forward.
She was at the door to the room, peering out the hallway, before she even truly became aware of that fact. The light that parted the bedroom they slept in disappeared almost as soon as she stepped out into the hallway. It was as if the shadows fled the bedroom and stayed with her, keeping the hallway mostly hidden. She made her way down it, heading in the direction of the cries she heard, by feel alone.
She didn't even question how she knew where she was going, how she didn't stumble blindly through the house. She simply knew. It was as if she had lived there her whole life.
She found the woman in the last room on the left. She was kneeling on the ground, the skirts of her dress fanning out around her. The dress was old fashioned, bodice laced up the front, chemise loose and flowing against the woman's upper arms. Cradling something in her hands, Belle watched as she leaned forward, whispering something close to the object.
"Pardon me?" She hadn't meant to speak. Not really. But the words came out anyway.
The woman's head snapped around and her eyes found Belle's.
Blue, like her own.
Long chestnut hair, like her own.
And she watched as her own mouth opened in an "o" of surprise.
"Who are you?" Belle asked and her hand came up to hold onto the door frame. The woman kneeling on the floor just watched her for a moment before turning her face back to whatever she held.
A cup, Belle realized. A teacup. White with a blue pattern painted on the side. It looked old and very fragile, a chip already missing from it. The woman who was her and not her cradled it in her palms and the look she gave it was one of such deep sadness that Belle felt it go straight through to her heart, lancing her as if it were something physical and not just emotional.
This is where the sadness is coming from. This woman, this not-Belle. Sadness, heartbreak, guilt. They all wafted off her like the smells of dinner cooking in the kitchen. Belle could almost taste the emotions they were so strong.
Her hand came to her chest, feeling her own heart beating erratically. "You lost someone," she finally said and the woman's eyes met hers. Belle didn't know why, there was nothing that specifically spoke to that, but she just knew. She stepped forward, leaned down toward the woman, hand outreached.
She wanted the cup.
She couldn't even understand why.
She just knew she wanted to touch it, feel it.
But the woman drew away with a silent intake of breath. When Belle backed off, the woman turned watery blue eyes, so familiar and yet not at the same time, back to her. "I lost someone, yes," she finally said. And it was weird hearing a voice so like her own and yet so different. The accent was stronger, the pitch just slightly off. "He threw me out. Didn't want me." A tear slowly tracked down the woman's cheek.
"Why?"
She watched as she swiped the tear away, the woman's anger hitting her like a blunt object. "Power," she finally said.
"I don't…"
"It was more important than me." The words were whispered, but Belle still could hear them clearly.
"I…" She didn't get further than that. The word choking in her throat as the woman in front of her faded. Faded. She was there one moment, then just simply faded away. And Belle was left staring at an empty room.
As she backed away, a scream trying to form, she tried to not notice the teacup still sitting on the floor, a tattered reminder of the woman's heartbreak.
Belle hadn't quite been certain how she'd ever made it back to the bedroom. She remembered stumbling down the hall, rushing back the way she had so calmly walked just a short while ago. She found her way easily enough and found Gold still where she left him. Curled onto his side, covers drawn up close over him, he looked small and vulnerable.
"Gold?" She whispered his name and was dismayed to see no reaction from him.
When she touched his shoulder, he simply reached out a hand, grasping, and she crawled back into the bed, allowed him to pull her in close to him. It was different this time. She was aware. Her head was tucked into the crook of his shoulder, his arms holding her tight against him. She could feel him, could run her hands down the lean muscles of his back.
It felt like it was taking advantage of him though, to touch him in such a way, and so simply let her arms rest comfortably around him, allowed the warmth and his presence to drag her back down into sleep. She'd worry about the woman later. Maybe in the morning. When it no longer mattered.
Gold was gone when she next woke up. The bed was cold, the only evidence that he had been sleeping there an indentation in the pillow and the sheets that were slightly rumpled. The room around her was so dark that she couldn't see anything, was almost certain she had somehow managed to lose her vision. But then she started to make out shapes. The moon had disappeared behind clouds and the only bit of light was what managed to make its way through the thick clouds.
She didn't dare call out for Gold. Something told her to remain quiet. That same something drew her from the bed, as if her limbs were not her own, as if there was a puppet master pulling her strings. Treading lightly, she made her way out of the room, turned right instead of left and found herself standing in front of a door.
Her hand was on the doorknob before she felt it.
Anger.
Intense.
Overpowering.
Anger like she was sure she had never felt before. Red hot, blazing. She could almost feel the heat on the door.
She shouldn't push it open.
She could tell herself that over and over again. Tried, in fact. Tried to wrench herself away. Tried to go back to bed. Tried to do anything but push that door open and see what was behind it.
But she couldn't stop herself and the door slid noiselessly open. Gold stood there, beyond that door. Leaning forward slightly, both hands resting atop his cane. In front of him was a massive gilt mirror, larger than the one in the bedroom they were staying in. Gold was staring into it, his upper lip curled into a sneer, his eyes narrowed. She realized the hands on top of his cane were gripping it tightly, knuckles white.
"Gold?" she managed to get out.
He didn't move. Not so much as an eyebrow twitched or a muscle movement. As if he simply didn't hear her.
"Gold!" She spoke louder this time, sharper. He still made no movement until she stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder.
And then he jumped and turned to her. The hand gripping the cane rose, shifted, the end suddenly being pointed at her, wielded as if it were a weapon. She spoke his name again. For a moment his eyes were blank, almost black in the dim room, and she was sure he didn't really see her. Then he blinked, shuddered once, and his hand loosened its grip on his cane. "Belle," he whispered.
"What were you looking at?" She knew, somehow, that it wasn't his own reflection he was seeing.
He cleared his throat, glanced back at the mirror and shuddered again. "Let's…let's go back to our room."
His face was pale, there in the ever-shifting moonlight. "Gold." The word came out on a broken whisper.
"It was a man," he answered her unasked question. "But not a man."
"Not…"
"He was in a rage." His voice was low, quiet, urgent. She watched as he stepped back toward the mirror, his eyes not leaving the surface. "He had been betrayed. Trapped…"
"In the mirror?" She turned to look at it. There was nothing marring its surface, nothing there but their own reflection.
Gold nodded, swallowed hard. "She left him there. Left him and went on her way. He's spent an eternity there, waiting."
Waiting…
Belle remembered the feeling she had had upon walking into the house, that sense that something was waiting in the darkness, biding its time.
"Waiting for?"
Gold shook his head and his eyes finally fell on Belle. "Her, I think."
And Belle knew.
She knew.
She took a step toward the mirror, reached out a hand. It was cool beneath the brush of her fingertips. Just a mirror. And yet she saw the slight ripple on the surface that indicated it wasn't exactly what it looked like. It was a prison. Trapping a man, who was not a man, while a woman who looked like her, but was not her, cried about lost love in another room.
"She's here," Belle whispered.
"Here?"
Gold's voice sounded very far away, as if he had somehow disappeared down the hallway. "Here," she confirmed. "In another room. In this house. She sits and sobs over a broken teacup and a lost love."
Ghosts, she finally realized. They were talking about ghosts. And she wasn't sure if she was having a very lucid dream or if this was reality.
Ghosts don't exist.
Children's stories. Meant to scare the young and naïve.
"I need to bring her here," Belle said and as soon as the words came out, they felt right. The woman needed to be in that room. She was in the wrong room. She had to unite them.
"Here?" Gold asked.
"Yes." She turned away then, determined. This was what had to happen. She became more and more convinced of it as she strode down the hallway, head held high. Her steps were quick, light. When she entered the room the woman had been in, there was nothing there. A faded rug, tattered about the edges, evidence that mice had been there at one point. There was no sign of the woman anywhere, no sign that she had ever been there. Even the teacup was gone.
"Show yourself!" Belle said, the first words spoken above a whisper since this whole thing began.
Nothing.
She felt a presence behind her and turned to find Gold standing there. His eyes were wide, haunted. "I don't understand," he finally muttered. He was completely out of his element, she realized. The pawnbroker, his hair wildly askew, his normally immaculate suit just a little bit creased, was used to dealing with absolutes. Purchasing and selling antiques, leases, deals.
"You look like him." Belle and Gold both turned as one to find the woman back, slightly transparent and kneeling in the same position Belle had last seen her in. But then she stood, stepped closer, her eyes never leaving Gold.
"She looks like…" Gold started to say.
"Me, I know." Belle's voice was grim.
"Who are you?" the ghost-woman said.
Gold just shook his head.
"Please come with us," Belle said. The woman's eyes flitted to her and she froze, blue eyes wide.
"I can't."
"You can. You must." Belle held out a hand to her. She wasn't even sure why she did it. The woman looked at the hand as if it were poison and took a step backward. Belle followed her, hand still outstretched. "You must," she repeated.
The woman looked past her, her eyes falling on Gold again. Her head cocked slightly to the side and Belle watched as she bit her lower lip. And it was like looking at herself in the mirror, a gesture she had made a thousand times. One she, if she could admit it, had perfected in the mirror when she was an awkward teenager trying to manage some way to flirt with boys she never really was very interested in.
"You look like him," the woman who was not her repeated.
And then she moved past Belle, stepped out of the room. Gold stepped back, away from her and Belle waved him ahead. Clearly he needed to lead the way. He looked like him after all, and she could only imagine the "him" in question was the lost love. Trapped there in the same house. Trapped in a mirror.
The strange procession walked slowly down the hall. Or, at least, she and Gold walked. The woman between them seemed to float, her steps light and silent, as if she weren't quite moving in the same world they were. Every once in awhile her body turned transparent and Belle could see Gold through her as he walked with heavy, limping steps.
The room was as they left it. The moon was lower in the sky, sending a shaft of light into the center of the room. Belle wondered how long they had been gone. It seemed near dawn, the sky not quite as inky black as it had been when they left the room.
The mirror still stood in its gilt frame, hidden in the shadows.
"I don't understand," the woman murmured.
Gold led her to the mirror. For a moment, nothing happened. Silence, the muffled sound of the clock chiming somewhere down below them. She could hear her own breathing. And Gold's. Nothing from the woman who looked like her. She simply stared at the mirror, completely still.
And then the mirror gave a shudder. Just a small one at first. So small that Belle wasn't sure if she had seen it or simply imagined it. But then it rippled and the flat surface shifted.
There was a man there.
No. Not a man. He stalked forward and she could see the wild hair, strange greyish gold skin that extended from his face down to the open collar of the shirt he wearing. Reptilian eyes focused first on Gold and then the woman who still stood slightly behind him.
He went still then, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. She could just barely make out crooked rotting teeth as he spoke. "Belle?"
There was sadness there. Sadness and confusion and just a note of absolute disbelief. So much so that she barely registered that the creature in the mirror had spoken her own name.
"Rumple," the woman responded with and Belle turned toward her, saw the tears forming in the woman's eyes.
"You're alive," the apparition in the mirror said. He stepped forward and Belle, the real Belle, at least she thought of herself as the real Belle, studied him.
"Oh my gosh, Gold." She reached out for his sleeve, pulled him back. "He's you."
"What? No…"
"He is." Her words were an insistent whisper. "Look at his nose, the cheekbones…" Despite the apparition's strangely colored skin and wild hair, despite his outlandish dress, he was the pawnbroker. The high cheekbones, the sharp nose, the set of his jaw.
"I am, Rumplestiltskin," the other Belle said. "No thanks to you." And there was ire there for the first time.
"Rumplestiltskin spins straw into gold," Belle pointed out.
Gold muttered something entirely incoherent, but Belle could well imagine that it contained a few curse words.
"She told me you were dead," the apparition known as Rumplestiltskin said. The accent was similar to Gold's, but the strangely nasal, trilling tone to his voice was so dissimilar that she could see why Gold had a hard time seeing himself in the creature.
"I'm not."
"I see that," Rumplestiltskin responded with and there was that bit of sardonic amusement she heard so often in Gold's voice.
There was silence for a moment and Belle glanced out the window. The bit of pink just showing at the horizon was sliding higher. The trees were taking on a glow. The sun would rise soon, any time now. It should be a relief. It should mean the end of this. It should mean the library was saved.
But instead she just felt anxious, worried. If something didn't happen…
"My power wasn't more important than you," the creature in the mirror said. The words were quiet, serious.
She heard the other Belle make a noise and realized she was choking back sobs. "But you…"
"I was protecting myself," Rumplestiltskin answered the question before the other Belle could even get it out. "I was scared."
"Of me?"
"Of us," he said quickly.
"Is there…an us?" Belle could hear the hope in the other woman's voice clear as day.
"I think so." There was hope there, too.
Hope she was afraid would fade away if something didn't happen soon. Now.
"Go to him," Belle said. And she realized she knew. Knew what had to happen, knew what this other Belle had to do. "Go to him," she repeated.
The other Belle looked away from the mirror for a moment, studying her. Her eyes were clear, the tears on her cheeks the only evidence of her earlier emotions. She seemed serene now. Almost joyful. "Yes," she murmured and stepped forward, past Gold, past Belle.
The room seemed to stretch as she approached the mirror, shifting around them. Then there were two mirrors, four, eight, a hundred. The other Belle reached out a hand and she watched as the creature in the mirror reached back. Their hands met, somewhere between mirror and reality, his claws gently touching her hand before the oddly colored fingers wrapped around hers.
They hung there, suspended, halfway between worlds. And then the other Belle leaned forward. Just a tiny bit, almost imperceptible. And the dam broke. Rumplestiltskin pulled back and the other Belle stepped through. "I'm sorry," Belle heard Rumplestiltskin say. The other Belle nodded once and then they were in each other's arms and their lips met.
White light shot out of the mirror, pushing Belle and Gold back. She turned away from it, the brightness of it painful and found herself in Gold's arms again, pressed tightly against him, her head lowered to his chest.
There was one last burst of light, so bright she could see it through her closed eyelids, the sound of shattering glass, and then silence, darkness. She stayed close to Gold for a minute, enjoying the press of him against her.
Then she opened her eyes and looked around them.
The mirror was gone.
And the sun had just begun its ascent. She could see the very top of it coming up over the trees in the distance.
"We did it," Gold said, looking out the window.
"We did it!" Belle shouted and wrapped her arms around him again. She felt his arms come around her and laughed in elation. "We did it," she repeated.
"Do you feel it?" Gold finally asked.
"Feel…" she started to ask, but then she knew. She understood. The pervading sense of sadness and anger, of shadows waiting to leap out at them, was gone. In its place was…nothing. The place was absent of sadness and joy, of anger and cheer. In its place was left a blank slate. A home waiting for new memories to fill it. "Yes. Yes I feel it."
They had succeeded in something, here. In curing the place. In reuniting the Dark One and his lady love. In…well…Belle wasn't sure what else. She only knew she wanted to get to know Gold better. They had come here on a pretense, a fake couple intending to spend one night and then go their separate ways. But she wasn't so sure she wanted that anymore. He was intriguing. And perhaps all the more so for seeing the Dark One's resemblance to him, in seeing her own face in his love's.
"Let's get out of here," Gold said and held out an arm to her.
"Yes. I have a library to save." Her library. Safe for another year. She hadn't thought it possible, had been sure this would fail and her library about that.
They got as far as the front room before Gold stopped her. "About that…" he started to say.
"You're not…"
"No. The money is yours. But…" She watched as he took a deep breath. "I think I might want to make a yearly donation. Just as a tax write-off of course."
She smiled and took his arm. "Of course," she murmured as they stepped back onto the porch. Had it really just been one night since they'd been there last? It felt like days, weeks even. She didn't feel like the same person who had walked into that house the night before.
And she knew, somehow, that he felt the same. That this had affected him as much as it had her.
"What did you do?" She looked away from Gold to see Victor rushing up. His eyes looked wild, unsettled. Belle glanced back at the house after they stepped off the porch. It looked like any other house. A little run down, a little tired. But the aura of fear was gone, the blood-reds words gone from the front door.
"We broke the curse," Belle said with a smile, They moved past Victor. "You can send the check to the library."
"Curse?" she heard Victor say behind her and she just laughed.
"Wait," Gold said and Belle stopped, turning toward him.
"Yes?"
"I…" She watched as he took a deep breath, shut his eyes for a moment. "Perhaps sometime…"
"I'd love to," Belle said and reached up to put both hands on either side of his face and drew him down for a kiss. This time it felt less awkward and his arms wrapped around her, pulled her tight against him as the kiss deepened.
When they broke away, both were breathing hard. "Good," Gold murmured.
As they walked off, arm in arm, Gold leaned down close to her. "I might just have to buy that place." And Belle laughed, feeling truly light for the first time in a very long time.