This is (one of) my gift to winterswanderlust for for the Rumbelle Christmas In July 2017. Her prompt was: I'm not in denial.
Summary:There must be something wrong with him, because he has everything he ever wanted. After all this time he has it all. His relationship with Belle is improving with every new day. He has his little boy back (but he cannot help but miss a time when he was there if only not so little).
There is a room that is locked (but you have the key)
There is a locked room in the big pink house that he calls home.
When he and Belle decided to bring their lovely baby son there it had been easy to forget about that locked room. After all he had just got his family back, and all his energy had been devoted to the little baby and his beautiful Belle. They had passed that room without a second thought; direct to his (their) bedroom, where they slept next to each other with Gideon between them, carefully put in his basket to avoid crushing him.
The first few days it had been easy to not think about anything else that Belle and Gideon, making sure they were comfortable in the house. He sorted the nursery out, unused since Gideon was seven, (but no that hadn't happened) leaving it ready to host his little son (again, but not again because he never was there to begin with).
Belle (who hadn't lived here during the short time of the course and who didn't have any cursed memories of ever been here, who wouldn't know about the changes that the curse had done) had been marveled at the beautiful nursery.
That day was the first time he thought about the locked room, and promptly had magically removed every reminder of the existence of his son from the house and had sent it to the locked room. That night after Belle had fallen asleep he walked the few steps from his bedroom to the locked room.
He opens the door cautiously as if there was a bomb in the other side, and allows himself a minute to think about the contents of the room, but he doesn't go further than the threshold of the door.
He feels like crying but he doesn't know why,
Missing you (even though you are right there)
He holds his little boy and cannot avoid remember about other times.
Belle is impressed at his skills taking care of Gideon, and he cannot stop his bittersweet smile every time she mentions it. She looks him with melancholic eyes, and hugs him softly.
Maybe she thinks that he is thinking about Bae (and in part he is, but in part he isn't, he is thinking about Gideon).
Gideon is a quiet baby, (but he wasn't, he remembers interminable nights spent trying to soothe him into sleep) he doesn't make much fuss (and even if he does this time around he isn't alone, Belle is here to help).
When Gideon was a baby (in a life that never was) he loved a chestnut haired mammoth plush toy. The toy is there over the dresser of this locked room (Gideon's room) it´s worn but well loved and in good condition (after all no one has ever used it, not really) and he thinks about giving it to his son (again) and a knot forms in his throat, and it's silly 'cause he's thinking about his boy, the same boy that is sleeping in his cradle in the next room (but at the same time he isn't). At the end he takes the mammoth and get out of the room, closing the door and wiping his eyes, and goes to the nursery where Belle is reading a story for their son. She looks up from his book to him, and he shows her the mammoth watching an enormous smile spread in her face. She closes the book while he offers the toy to Gideon (and if his heart jumps to his throat she doesn't notice or ignores it). The baby so little and so beautiful, takes it and hugs it strongly, and he smiles (but he stills wants to cry).
Living through it (and dying a little in the inside)
They spend several weeks blissfully in their home taking care of their little baby, but they have obligations to attend. It was agreed that Gideon would spend the mornings in the library with Belle and the afternoons in the pawnshop with him.
He thinks his work here would help him to be distracted (but that is only wishful thinking and he knows it)
The shop has more mementos of his son that even the house has. His notepads, his half-finished projects, everything there contains (fake) memories of him. And even though his brain knows that his son spent just about 10 hours in this shop, his heart ignores the message.
He wonders if this is his mother last laugh, if she knew something like this could happen and prepared this on purpose to torture him, even in dead.
Sometimes when he is alone in the back room tinkering with some thing or another he raise his eyes expecting to see his boy in the other side of the table but he isn't there… except that he is there sleeping soundly in his little basket.
It's in that moment that he decides that he won't change the sign, after all Gideon would spend some time here anyways.
Am I right? (Because it feels so wrong)
There must be something wrong with him, because he has everything he ever wanted. After all this time he has it all. His relationship with Belle is improving with every new day. He has his little boy back (but he cannot help but miss a time when he was there if only not so little). But he stills feels sad.
Sometimes he goes to the locked room and opens it, and observes the mementos of a life that he didn't live, and a son that never used any of the things that are there.
He sit and the bed (were his son never slept) and cries, for the life that was erased and for the memories he cannot forget.
He is still there when Belle finds him in the middle of night, he tries to wipe his eyes but the dammed tears won't stop. Belle enters the room and sit next to him, taking his hands on hers.
–Rumple… -her voice is soft and tentative –is something wrong?
He wants to tell her that nothing is wrong, but he can't because the words are knotted in this throat and he cannot talk just cry while Belle tries to soothe him, speaking nonsense in his ear.
When he calms enough to speak, he tells her about the contents of the room (because she deserves to know) and he sees her face pale while glancing around. He tried to stop, to tell her that everything is okay, but now that the words started to flow he's powerless to stop them.
–I tried to denial it at first. Those things, those memories never happen. Gideon was never here, he never used any of those things but I understood that those memories weren't the only thing bothering me…
Gideon lived during 28 years… a life time and now he is a blank state again and I'm happy that we have our baby, I really am. But I cannot help but be sad for the boy we never have the opportunity to know, for the little kid that was forced to grow up without anyone to love him or support him. My sadness it's not only for the memories the curse gave me but for our son who was raised for that psychopath, and for whom we couldn't do anything to help. I failed another of my sons, and that would ever haunt my soul.
Belle hugs him really hard and there are tears running freely in her cheeks, but doesn't say a word. He knows that she also feels guilty, that she thinks everything that happened to Gideon was her fault, so he hugs her hard too. And in a softer voice he tells her:
–But I'm not in denial any longer. He lived and he had a difficult life, but I won't let history to repeat itself. I won't fail my little boy again; I will try and I will be the best father for Gideon.
It's a promise for Gideon, but also for her (the woman he loves and whom he had hurt so many times in the past) that her son (their son) would be safe forever.
Belle pulls a little apart from their embrace and gives him a soft little kiss, (that tastes like salt and comfort) and after that she smiles behind her tears and tells him.
–Oh Rumple, you already are…
Walking in the light with your head high (while crying in the night)