Hi! So I'm totally hooked on Once Upon A Time, perhaps one of the best shows ever, even if it's kind of confusing unless you watch it from the very beginning.
lol hi. it's great.
anyway, tonight's episode was about Rumpelstiltskin and Belle and IT WAS THE BEST EPISODE I HAVE SEEN SO FAR. they're my new favorite, and then I got to thinking that maybe Rumpelstiltskin isn't so bad after all! This fic takes place about two weeks after the end of the episode that aired tonight and may just be a one-shot: please let me know if you would like more chapters!
As the bars slid open, Mr. Gold shot a grin at Sheriff Swan. "Told you I'd get out," he said with a devilish smirk, before tapping his cane on the floor and walking right out of the police station.
Today was a lovely day to visit the hospital- particularly his old friend Mr. French from the flower shop.
He strolled along the boulevard, quickly checking into his shop to make sure he hadn't been robbed again while in jail. Everything seemed to be in order, so he closed the door again and locked up just to be safe. He left the chipped teacup in the deep pocket on the inside of his jacket, where it had lived since the Queen returned it to him.
She knew his name now; that would be quite a problem, should she ever possess the dagger. Luckily only he knew its location, difficult to find as a stranger but simple enough if you knew Rumpelstiltskin's story. And fortunately, the Queen had yet to learn everything about him.
He continued on his way to the hospital, glancing about with curiosity at the sunlit world. He hadn't been outside in two weeks, and the world was strange to him. It was nearly a repeat of that moment when Belle drew aside the curtain…when suddenly his castle filled with light again.
Pausing in the middle of the sidewalk, Gold shook his head and cleared his mind of Belle. No sense thinking of her once again, for she had left him long ago. She wouldn't come back anyhow: she was dead.
His throat choked up, and he took a gasping breath, leaning heavily upon his cane. Every time he shut his eyes, two faces appeared: that of Belle and that of his son, perhaps the only two things he had truly loved since the Dark One possessed him.
After one last sigh and breath of fresh air, he opened his eyes again, meandering towards the hospital, more slowly this time. Moe French, the father of Belle in the other land, needed to be dealt with. Perhaps Gold would apologize for breaking the man's bones, even if the regret he planned to show wasn't genuine.
He stood outside the hospital for several minutes, with its towering glass windows along the sides and top and the smaller drains to the basements at the bottom. Life was full of curious surprises. If Gold's visit was one to French, he'd consider the scale balanced a bit, even if French didn't.
What he had done was justice, that was all: for French letting his daughter go without a fight, for shunning her once she returned to him, for driving her mad by locking her in a tower and leaving her no choice but to jump.
Again, Gold saw Belle's face: tearless and dry, but still racked with emotion as she forced out her last words to him: "You just don't believe that someone could love you. Well, you've made your choice- and you'll regret it forever."
He had let her go, just like that, without a farewell or good wish, perhaps even one last kiss to get him through the painful, lonely days he experienced after her departure.
Once, he hoped for a second chance: that if she ever returned to him he would give up everything, all his power and riches and strength, just to keep her from leaving again. Then the Queen came and informed him of his poor Belle's terrible fate, inflicted by her father's wrath.
Since that moment, Rumpelstiltskin had devoted himself only to revenge. He kept the teacup she had chipped on their first day together, his only reminder of her very existence. Sometimes he wondered if Belle had been real, or if she had really loved him: but always he remembered the feel of her lips on his, for the one brief moment the kiss had lasted. That had been real and true love, in that fleeting second: the magic people die for, live for, fight for.
Gold shivered in his spot, even with the March sun beating down on him, and wondered if Belle had ever considered the age difference. He was fifteen, perhaps twenty years older than she: had she even considered it?
She kissed him once, without a thought. He doubted it had ever crossed her mind.
"My Belle," he murmured to the air. "My love, how I miss you." He pressed his fingers against his lips, frozen for a long while, before turning and walking away from her father as fast as his legs and cane could carry him.
