A/N: So, my first RumBelle fic went down pretty well, here comes another! Dark and angsty is the order of the day, but hopefully someone somewhere will like it anyway :)
Special thanks to my friend hollymac_79 (at LJ) for the beta
(Disclaimer: All recognisable characters belong to the creators of Once Upon A Time and/or Brother Grimm and/or Disney - basically, they don't belong to me!)
Spinning A Tangled Web
"He was cruel to her," the queen told gleefully of poor Belle's plight. "He locked her in a tower and sent in clerics to cleanse her soul with scourges and flaying," she grinned diabolically. "After a while, she threw herself off the tower. She died".
Rumpelstiltskin bit his tongue for fear of ruining everything. The flippancy with which Regina spoke of his darling Belle's death made his fists curl of their own accord. He wished to flatten her, right here and now, knock her to the ground, grind her into dust beneath his heel. Now was not the time.
"You're lying," he ground out, looking hurt he was sure of it, though there was no mirror to prove it to him.
"Am I?" the queen smiled still, but Rumpelstiltskin still held on to his temper , albeit by a thread.
He ordered the baggage out and she left after just a moment. Her parting shot about getting another girl stung more than it should in the circumstances. If what she said were true, it would be so much worse, unbearable in fact, he knew that now. As things stood, he was only relieved to have the evil cow gone from his sight.
Immediately, he headed for the far door, opened it up and told the young woman beyond that she was safe to emerge. Belle looked visibly shaken by her ordeal, having to hear of her own death in such a way had caused her alarm, as Rumpelstiltskin had known it might. She was so delicate and fragile in many ways, despite the strength and courage she held in her heart.
"Don't let her bother you, dearie," he told her gently as he could. "As I promised, all will be well now".
Belle nodded slowly, as she walked further into the room, letting out a breath she barely knew she had been holding. This whole circumstance was so strange, she could hardly take it in. The past few days had unfolded in the strangest of ways, starting from her first ever meeting with the evil Queen Regina. To think that awful woman had set a trap for dear Rumpelstiltskin, using her as bait. Belle felt sick to think of it, sicker still to know she must love her man (who claimed not to be a man at all) from afar, but if that was how it must be, she would learn to live with it. It was for the greater good as she had come to realise.
Rumpelstiltskin liked the situation no better than she, but he had his reasons. It was only a day or two after she had left him, after he sent her away for her own good as much as his own, that he came to see his mistake. A vision or a dream, to this day he was uncertain if he had been asleep or awake when it hit, and he had known what he must do. To think now of those images that danced behind his eyes then made bile rise in his throat anew, and yet it was as clear as ever if his thoughts dared to stray.
It was dark, so much darker that any part of the castle that bore the name. The tower that stretched up into the blackness was as cold as death, and the screams emanating from the highest window echoed through the night. Rumpelstiltskin stood on the ground, each piercing wail from her lips cutting him to shreds like a shower of broken glass. Her pain was his pain, a million times multiplied because he was part of the cause, he knew. Sending her back here, to the castle where he had first found her. That wretched King that let the beast take his beautiful daughter away was now punishing her, he was certain of it.
In a moment, a flash of light, perhaps of magic, put Rumpelstilstskin by the high window, crouched on the sill. He saw his dear beloved Belle, realised fully the agony she suffered at the hands of clerics and her own father too. They wished to rid her of the evil that had entered her, the darkness they believed had been put into her by The Dark One himself. The briefest moment of a tender kiss had done more harm to him than her. This was ludicrous, abominable, beyond the evil he believed humans to be capable of, and yet when she screamed in agony again, her pain was all so real.
The clerics left her then, the room empty but for the poor young woman cowering on the cold and silent stone floor. To know she was suffering, and worse that she was suffering because of him, it broke the heart Rumpelstiltskin hadn't really believed he still owned.
"Belle," he whispered, about to drop down into the room to bring her comfort when he realised she had looked towards him.
Had she heard him speak? Was any of this even real? Rumpelstiltskin did not have time to wonder as Belle's eyes flicked from the window to the door and back. She pulled herself up to her feet, staggered unsteadily, forced her torn dress back around her battered and bleeding body. She could bear the pain no longer, he could see it in her eyes, and they had lost their old fire. Instead, she was broken beyond repair, inside and out. She had but one choice left.
He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came from Rumpelstiltskin's lips. No spell he conjured would work, even his hands extended to stop her were pointless. Belle passed through him as if he were nothing but an illusion, falling past him in a blur of light. He was sure he heard her whisper 'Forgive me' as she toppled to her death, but to whom she spoke he was sure he would never know. All he saw was her body crumpled somewhere far beneath the tower, and with an unholy scream the nightmare vision erupted into nothing but smoke and disappeared.
Reality came upon Rumpelstiltskin like a too bright light in the blackness of the Dark Castle's lonely rooms. It took a moment to be calm, to see sense, to realise that which he had seen was yet to be. His precious Belle, she was still alive, but pained and suffering. If she were dead he would know, he would feel it, he was certain of that. There was still time, still a chance to save her life. Of course he knew it would not be a simple task. The Queen had her pointy fingers in one too many pies, and given any chance at all, she would see the Dark One destroyed. Rumpelstiltskin was more powerful than she, not weaker for being ruled by his heart for once, but perhaps stronger than ever.
To send Belle away, it had seemed the thing to do, to save the both of them from pain that must come later. He would hurt her, break her heart, no matter what else happened. Besides, letting her close would destroy everything he had worked so hard to build, and that would not do at all, not for himself or for the whole land. There was much he would have to explain that he had tried to avoid before, but Rumpelstiltskin was sure he could trust in Belle to keep secrets that must be kept.
With a plan in mind, he swept an arm up around his own form, and disappeared from the castle, reappearing in the very window he had seen in his mind. The shock of reality, of seeing his dear Belle as broken as he had somehow known she was, it almost sent Rumpelstiltskin tumbling from that window himself, onto the unyielding stone below. He fought against the rage inside, the dark power that he wished to throw down upon her captors, those that would dare to harm what was his. To lose control now would only make matters worse. Better to save such things for later.
"Belle," he felt unworthy to speak her name after all that happened, and yet when she looked up at him from behind a messy curtain of hair, he saw no anger in her eyes.
They had defeated her, and he had played his part in that. There was no joy to be found in the pain of one so dear, only a tearing of his heart that made the Dark One want to scream.
"What... What are you doing here?" she asked him, lost and desperate, so confused apparently.
His hands itched to reach for her, to comfort her and tell her all would be well, but he resisted. She dragged herself up from the cold floor, pushed her hair from her face with so much effort. Cuts and bruises marred her cheeks, her shoulders, her arms. All skin that could be seen had been set upon, her dress torn in struggles and rituals unknown. Rumpelstiltskin swallowed hard.
"Came for you, dearie," he tried to tell her. "This... this is not what I wanted when I sent you away. I meant to save us both and... and I was wrong," he admitted, words hardly ever spoken since the day he first became this creature he was now.
The man within had made mistakes, too many to count, but Rumpelstiltskin never truly felt regret for all he had done as the Dark One, not until now.
Through ragged breaths and untold pain, it was miraculous that Belle should find a smile, and yet it appeared, like the sun shining through the darkest clouds. Her head nodded slowly as she stepped towards him, stumbled on her own feet and almost fell. Rumpelstiltskin was there to catch her, gentle as anyone ever had been, as he put her back onto her feet with ease.
"You do love me," she almost laughed, out of relief rather than anything else. "I knew you did!"
"Of course I do, silly girl," he told her with a half-smile of his own, that same expression gone in a flash when she leaned into his embrace a little more. "But things have not changed so much. You matter more than power to me, but power I must have, Belle, for reasons you cannot understand," he shook his head, eyes everywhere but on her.
It was wrong to keep her to himself when he could not give her all she needed. He had sent her away to save them both, but this suffering she was enduring at the hands of those who ought to care, it was beyond the pain she would live through with him. Rumpelstiltskin could offer her safe harbour, and love of a kind that even he could not explain himself. They would not be the Prince and Princess of the castle that she might wish inside her clever, romantic mind, but it would be better than the future he had seen behind his eyes tonight.
"You came for me," Belle smiled with tears in her eyes, borne both of relief at his being here and pain from her injuries, he had no doubt. "That is enough".
She collapsed into his arms and all Rumpelstiltskin could do was hold on tight, casting a spell she neither heard nor noticed, before sweeping Belle up into his arms like the hero she saw him as. She had been here before, and would be again, he was certain, as he whisked them away in a blur of smoke to the Dark Castle where they belonged.
So many powerful spells left Rumpelstiltskin drained, and yet he used all the energy he had remaining to ease the pain of the wounds Belle had suffered, and some beyond his reasoning that dressed her in the finest gown he could conjure. She slept along time, as he did the same, and by morning they both felt better, though none the less confused.
Whilst Belle wondered at being back where she now felt she belonged after the terrible way she and Rumpelstiltskin had parted, he worried that his spell last night may be detected and unravelled. At the same time, he thought on his own feelings, deep emotions he was sure he had lost the ability for when the Dark Power turned him into the creature he had become. As a man he might have loved Belle, but as he was now, he wondered at the way he felt, wondered how it were possible. It only further proved to him how special Belle really must be.
They came to meet in the main hall, purely by accident on his part. He was so distracted by his spinning that he was barely paying attention when she strolled in with the tray as she had so many times before. He watched in silence as she poured the tea and brought his over to him in the usual chipped cup. Their hands met briefly at the handle, and she smiled when he looked up into her eyes.
"Thank you," he nodded once.
"No, thank you," she insisted, meaning so much more than she could ever say.
He owed her an explanation, and yet she did not ask for it. She took her seat, sipped her tea, and said not another word. Her silence was more than Rumpelstiltskin could bear. Getting up from the stool at his wheel, he brought his tea cup over to the table and set it down, looking to Belle who would not, could not meet his eyes. Kneeling before her chair, his fingers reached to lift her chin, encouraging her to look at him.
"Belle, I am sorry," he told her, in a voice he barely recognised as his own. "At first I thought you had betrayed me, and when I was calm and realised what had happened, that you were honest and true, I still had to send you away, for your safety. I didn't know what lie in store for you".
"You couldn't have known," she shook her head, hands grasped in his. "I don't blame you for that, but I still don't understand," she told him in earnest. "First you send me away, then you bring me back here, and yet you still seem more concerned with keeping your powers than letting me love you as I long to love you".
He was up off his knees in an instant, her fingers slipping through his as he turned away. Anger boiled up inside his dark heart once again and he forced it away. This was not Belle's fault, not an ounce of it was her doing. Though she had drawn him in, made him feel so much so easily, it was not to be helped. There was no evil plot here, he saw that now, but Rumpelstiltskin could not give in to the temptress, even if she had not set out to be so.
"The Queen has plans, dearie," he all but yelled over his shoulder. "She will bring upon the land a curse, so dark and black as to make your father look like a saint," he said, turning upon her with flashing angry eyes. "She will make myself appear possibly angelic in comparison to the hell and damnation she will rain upon us all," he explained, fingers mimicking pouring rain like a child's might.
Belle looked taken aback, shocked and pained by the words he spoke and how fiercely he spoke them. It made Rumpelstiltskin try harder to be calm. Frightening was not what his beloved girl needed, and it would only do more harm than good.
"I am more powerful than she," he explained in a more even tone. "She knows it, and she would do anything, anything, to rid me of that advantage".
The poor maid sat before him suddenly realised the piece of the puzzle she had been missing all along. She had been so quick to jump to conclusions, as quick as Rumpelstiltskin himself had been. He was so sure she had been in cahoots with the Queen all along, to use True Love's Kiss and take away his strength and power. She had been equally as fast to assume when he sent her away it was out of fear of losing his heart to another. Now she saw the truth. He feared being powerless when the worst happened, not just for himself, but for her, for all.
"When she realises you have me back here, that our love is real..." said Belle worriedly, as he scrambled to stand.
"Not to worry, my love," he interrupted, rushing forward to take her hand when she seemed unsteady on her feet still. "She does not know you're here, nobody does," he laughed then, that same high pitched cackle that had made her chuckle too the first time she heard it, and was such a strangely dear sound to her now.
"But won't they guess where I've gone to?" asked Belle, sure that nobody would think to search for her in any other place.
"They believe you have gone nowhere, and everywhere," Rumpelstiltskin told her, tilting his hand in an odd gesture. "There might have been a spell," he said with a smirk and eyes that glittered with wickedness she could not find anything but enticing in such a moment.
Belle waited as Rumpelstiltskin encouraged her back into her seat and moved to pick up his tea cup, taking a sip. With wonder she listened to him explain what he had done, created a powerful magic that made Belle appear at the bottom of the very tower that had held her, motionless and devoid of life. It frightened her to hear a tale of her own passing when she knew very well she was still here, living and breathing as the day before, but oh so much happier to be away from those that would harm her.
"Just a glamour and a little mind altering, rolled into one," Rumpelstiltskin grinned, making a tumbling gesture with his hands as he spoke of mixing one or two of his spells and tricks together. "They believe you are gone for good, instead you are good to be gone".
The smile on Belle's face then would have been enough to light up the Dark Ones world and sustain him for at least a week, and yet she gave more. She ran at him with all the strength she could muster, and hugged him so tight, he thought he might break even in her fragile grasp. He held her just as tightly then, letting the warmth of her soothe him, breathing in the very scent of her. They could be as close as this and yet no closer. For now, it would have to do.
Moments later, he was forced to chase her out of the room, to hide away in the dungeon she had called home for months enough before. Regina was coming, he felt the darkness of her long before she arrived to tell her tragic tale. It hurt to hear, even though there was no truth in it, and at least when she was gone, Rumpelstiltskin could breathe a heavy sigh of relief that his clever tricks and lies had not failed him this time.
"I can hardly believe such a thing worked against one so powerful" said Belle with a shake of her pretty head.
"As I told you, dearie," Rumpelstiltskin smiled. "For all the power the Queen possesses, I have more," he reminded her, pointing a sharp nail into his own chest. "Does that... frighten you?" he checked when her expression remained less than happy.
"No," she admitted at length, as she walked back around the table to meet him on the other side. "It comforts me," she told him honestly. "I have known men with less real power than you that have frightened me so much more. They would use their strength to cause only pain. You have proven you will use yours to protect me," she said, reaching for his arms and encouraging them around her. "I only wish there was something I could do for you, that I could love you as you truly deserve".
"One day, sweet Belle," he told her. "When all this has passed. We might have the ending you wish for us," he promised.
She nodded that she understood, and hugged him tightly for the second time today. If this was as close as she might be to him for now, so be it. His love for her was real and true enough, as hers was for him. They both knew True Love's Kiss would break more than just a curse now, it would destroy carefully laid plans that Rumpelstiltskin could not have fractured. His pain and Belle's own must be borne as best they could, until the worst had passed. Then perhaps a happy ending would lie just around the corner.