A/N: Finally! This is done! Much love to marchionessofblackadder for giving me the encouragement to finish this piece. Also, the inspiration for this came from "Titanium" by David Guetta feat. Sia. I heard it, and immediately had an image of a girl falling in slow motion after being shot. Morbid, I know. But it gave me this. Enjoy!
How did it ever come to this?
The queen was brandishing crude weapons, reduced to blades and bullets after her magic had run dry.
One of his many mistakes, Belle thought bitterly as she stood defiantly in front of Regina.
"Ever so brave, even in the end," Regina sneered, always the melodramatic.
"The end has come and gone. I have nothing left to fear," Belle replied, surprised with how loud and confident her own voice sounded.
By contrast, the first bullet whispered its way toward her, curling through the air gracefully before finding its home in her shoulder.
He grasps her shoulder firmly and the warmth from his hold spreads.
Warmth.
It is so foreign to her that she barely registers the sensation.
"You're real," he breathes. "You're alive."
She knows she should back away. Twenty-eight years of residing in the mental ward have taught her to never be within an arm's reach of a man, lest you would like to be pinned to the wall and have unspeakable things be done to you. Nobody could hear he screams then, and she doubts if anyone would hear her screams in this secluded shop.
But something keeps her rooted.
His touch, tentative, yet firm, is oh so warm.
For the first time in twenty-eight years, she wants something. She wants his touch.
The hot blood barely had a chance to trickle down her arm before the next bullet ripped through the air to find her. It embraced its inevitable target for a moment before tearing through it: her right hand.
He guides her through the house, almost timidly. A hesitant hand finds the small of her back, and she smiles at the familiarity.
"I know it's not anything like the castles you're used to…" he says.
"I've been locked in a basement for twenty-eight years," she replies with a half-smile, "so this is much better than I'm used to."
Her stomach drops as his face crumples into a heartbreaking expression. Wanting to do anything to see him smile, without restraint, like he did in those wonderful, distant memories of other worlds, her hand brushes the hair out of his eyes and rests on his cheek. It is the first time she has initiated any contact and it does not go unnoticed by either party. He leans into her hand, and she lets out a breathy, little laugh.
"My room?" she asks, hoping to distract him further.
He takes her across the second story landing to the door next to his bedroom.
"Here," he opens the door. "No dungeons for you, dearie."
He leads her into a bright room with cream-colored walls and white, billowing curtains. A writing desk sits nestled under the large window, and a spacious four-poster occupies a good deal of the room. The closet door stands ajar and peeks of expensive fabrics and exquisite dresses can be seen.
She can't help herself. Her hand leaves his and glides along the walls. It finds its way to the beautiful, leather-bound books. Her fingers trace the ornate hand-mirror and the petals of a fresh rose sitting on the window sill.
Finally, her hand returns home, locked in his, and she likes that. Home.
This is home.
The queen hesitated, taken aback by her first two shots. Surprised that the horrid gun obeyed her as swiftly as her magic once did. Twisting her mouth into her signature sneer, she fired again.
Belle knew the queen was no marksman, and the bullet whizzing past her ear indicated that this would be slow. And painful. The bullet stirred her hair, yanking it, raising it into a tumult.
She checks her watch in surprise. They had been out in the garden for nearly five hours, longer than usual; she gardens and reads while he sips his tea and never tears his gaze away from her.
She was rarely let outside the castle in her past life, and even then only for a few moments. So being outside does glorious things to her, transforms her hesitant smirk into a beaming, glowing smile.
"The clouds, dearie," he indicates upward with a jerk of his head. "We better get inside if we don't want to get wet."
As if he had spoken some magic incantation, the sky opens up at his words, hurtling enough water to soak them to the bone within seconds.
"Belle!" he cries, rushing to her, he shrugs out of his suit jacket and plants the soggy garment on his beloved, knowing it will not do much good but needing to do something anyway.
"Inside!" he manages to yell over the roaring rain.
"No," she says, and he can barely hear it over the din. She turns her head upward and lets the water roll over her face, let's the sensation of being touched everywhere at once envelop her. The rain sprints down her, not bothering to be gentle; the antithesis of her Mr. Gold. He is nothing but gentle. And this bothers her very much.
Later, after he coaxes her out of the freezing rain and onto their warm bed, he runs his fingers through her hair. The little tugs at her scalp relax her enough to voice her question.
"Why are you so careful with me?"
His hands hesitate, and then continue as if she said nothing.
"Rum, are you scared I'm going to break?"
He pauses, and she takes that as an affirmation until he whispers against her hair, "No, Belle. I'm scared that I'm going to break."
She lets the breath leave her lungs before turning to face him. This gives him time to begin babbling.
"We know the day is coming. We know there'll be a day when it'll take me over and I'll be anything but careful with you." The lines deepen in his face and tears form in his eyes. "And I'll need this," he says, stroking her hair. "I'll need the memories of being gentle when my mind will be anything but."
"Alright," she smiles sadly. "But that doesn't mean I have to be."
His eyes widen as she pushes him back against the sheets.
Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Belle could've sworn that she saw Regina wink before letting loose a shot in her kneecap, giving her a lame leg identical to her Rum.
He never limps, never complains about his bum knee, not since the magic he let loose into this world repaired it once again. So when she walks in on him doubled over and using the kitchen counter for support, confusion registers before fear and concern.
"Rum?"
"Get away!" he shouts, wildly gesturing for her to leave him.
Instinctively, she disobeys him. In seconds she gathers him in her arms and forces him to look at her.
"Rumpelstiltskin," she says firmly, "you are going to tell me what is wrong."
He manages a pained smile at her concerned scowl before sheer agony takes over his expression.
"Rum!"
"It's the damned magic!" he hisses.
Her heart sinks. She thought there would be more time.
Of course there wouldn't be more time. There had been months of happiness in this house. Months of laughing and yelling and fighting over the TV remote and marathon lovemaking and cooking together and chasing away fears and just plain happiness. And there is a limit to that, Belle was finding out. The universe has a limit to how much joy she is allowed in her life.
So she smiles and places a lingering kiss on his cheek.
"Come on," she whispers, "I'll make us some breakfast."
There may be a limit to how much longer she can have happiness, but she'd be damned if she didn't grab every scrap of it that she could.
A wicked smirk curled Regina's mouth.
"It's truly a shame, dear," she said, and Belle didn't miss the emphasis on the endearment. "You're very pretty, and this is such a waste."
Belle refused to take the bait. She let the silence stretch on when she knew Regina was looking for a prompt to keep talking.
"You know, I won't have to kill you if you simply tell me where he is."
Belle dragged her haunted eyes up to the queen's.
"I don't know where he is," she managed. "I haven't for days now."
"Just as well," the twisted queen shrugged as she clumsily put a new clip in her gun. "Nothing would kill him like killing you."
With little warning, Regina cocked the gun and pumped a shot into Belle's torso, right below the ribs.
She can't believe her eyes. The purple smoke billows out and crawls toward them.
"Magic," he says, grasping her around the waist, "is coming."
"But why?" She speaks the question, but she knows the answer.
"Because magic is power."
She let's the anger fill her up slowly, like the creeping smoke around them, before she rounds on him.
"Rumpelstiltskin, how dare you?" she hollers, volume the only thing keeping the tremble from her voice. A string of profanities that surprise her more than him follows. Normal words are too tame for what she's feeling: the crushing sensation of not being enough even after nearly three decades of separation. Her words make no sense and she knows it, but dammit, she is angry and he will know it.
"Belle," he says, clutching her around the waist, "I know. I am. I am all those things you said: a coward and a bastard and everything." He offers a half-smile. "But I owe you a story. I have for over thirty years. And, if you'll permit me, I'd like to make good on that deal now."
They sit on the step up to the well. Rumpelstiltskin's story of his lost son spills out slowly until he realizes it's his Belle that he is talking to and then the story cascades from his mouth. The details of how he left Bae to face this world alone freely leave him under the coercion of her stricken, concerned eyes.
He tells her of the damned Blue Fairy and how she gave him hope of a way to find him again: a curse. He tells her of the sleepless nights he spent roaming the land for anything to aid him in creating the magic to transport their realm into this one. He tells her how he went years without food or seeing another living soul. He tells her the joy he felt when he found the key: the sacrifice of the thing you love most.
He tells her that it all changed when he saw her.
"I didn't even mean to ask for you," he says with a wry smile. "I had something else all set up to deal for, but when I saw you, the brightest mind there, being ignored, I knew there was more for you than just being decoration. There should be more to your life than just being a beauty, Belle."
His face hardens.
"But then something happened. I fell in love with you. And I couldn't. Not with the curse. Not when it meant that I had to kill you; not when it meant I had to lose someone else. So I sent you away." He draws in a shaky breath. "I never thought in a million years that you'd return. And then…"
She knows what he can't bring himself to remember. She knows he'll spend the rest of his life apologizing even though she forgave him decades ago.
"We'll find him," she whispers. "We'll do it, Rum. I-"
A high-pitched keen cuts her off. The magic's hissing had faded into the background long ago, but now it screams and writhes, impossible to go unnoticed. It folds back in on itself and begins to fall back into the well.
"No!" he bellows and sprints into the smoke with wide arms and incantations tripping over his tongue.
She tries to stop him, but twenty-eight years in a basement did nothing for her strength. Before she can chase him into the void, the magic launches itself at him. It forces its way into his system through his pores, mouth, and ears.
He collapses to the ground before she can scream.
Regina huffed and gave her weapon a look of consternation.
"You know, it'd almost be funny what happened to Rumple if I didn't have to use this."
She was back to talking and laughing to herself and Belle wished she would just shut up and kill her already.
"It's almost difficult to believe he missed it. That this world is not only bereft of magic, but it repels it. Can't hold it. So it latched onto him. Because he can obviously hold his magic, right Belle?" She laughed. "But even a whole realm of magic is too much for one person. I mean, you remember what he did to you out of anger under the influence of just his own magic, right? I hope you're still not shaken up by that." She let her pun sink in before continuing. "It was a wonder the madness of the magic didn't overtake him there at the well. You must be very special to Rumple for him to fight for months before he turned into the terrible monster he is now."
Belle vaguely noticed that the gun was pointed at her again. Good, she thought.
"Oh, well," Regina spat. "Better him than me."
Then the shots came faster and Belle hoped this meant the end was near. One barreled through her calf.
He rubs his stubbly chin over her leg just to watch her laugh and squirm.
"Stop, Rum!" she squeals.
The next bullet tore apart her thigh.
They watch a football game together. He loves the strange sport from the foreign land, and she loves watching him getting riled up over yellow cards and unintelligent goalies.
He falls asleep in her lap, head resting on her thigh. She sits there, content to remain on the couch until morning light.
Agony seared through her eye.
He kisses her eyelid when she cries, an apology for a trivial argument.
Her lips.
They hurl sarcastic quips at each other, both challenging the other to smile first.
Lungs.
Breathless. He leaves her breathless.
Her heart.
She fell to the ground gracelessly. Her broken body finally reflected the pain within. And yet, the empty wounds were nothing compared to how he left her. She took comfort when the darkness began to envelop her, while she bled out her memories. No amount of speeding, hot lead would make him any more lost to her nor bring him back.
And, in that, she lay there, bulletproof.
A/N: Did you like it? Oh, the feels. Please tell me if you have any by reviewing. It takes two seconds but it leaves me so happy for so long. Love you guys!