It's only been a couple days since the curse broke when Belle starts to really think about those memories she has locked up in her mind. There has been so much going on, families reuniting, the excitement of knowing who you are again, and the confusion. So much confusion. She's stayed out of it…mostly. She's asked Rumplestiltskin if her father is in this world somewhere and he seems to be, well, cagey about the answer.
She'll find out someday.
But it's the memories of her time, her fake time in Storybrooke that interests her the most. She spent the entirety of the curse in a catatonic state, unaware of her surroundings or the time passing. But the curse has left her with remnants of a life she never lived. And she finds that strangely fascinating.
She remembers her life growing up, just she and her father. Her mother had died long ago, both in their homeland and in her false memories. She doesn't remember her mother. She feels sad that the curse didn't want to give her a mother either, but it's not surprising really.
She remembers the day she got the job in the library and the day that Mr. Gold started to come in. He first simply took books out but soon he was discussing them with her and asking for recommendations.
And then she started setting books aside for him.
"You might like this one," she would tell the pawnbroker and he always seemed surprised that she thought of him. Even after she had done the same thing for a few months. He still picked up the book with a slight look of awe and a furrow between his brows.
Her mind sifts through the memories, trying to find the ones that she's looking for. Not that she knows what those are. But she wants to know. She wants to know their story. The rest of the town probably knows it. Rumplestiltskin certainly does. And so she feels like there will be something missing if she doesn't know.
She remembers his asking her out on a date for the first time. He had shown up to the library looking hardly any different than he did any other day, though there were lines around his mouth and a haunted look in his eyes that hadn't been there before. He had produced a flower. Just one single red rose and handed it to her.
"If you'll have it," he had murmured and she had scooped it up with a slight curtsey. She laughs at this memory now. She realizes where it came from, remembering a similar exchange back in their world. Strange how the curse has picked out parts of their past and entwined them with their fake lives. It makes it all more real somehow, even though she knows it's not
She remembers the dates, the picnics at his shop, the careful way they avoided most of the town for fear of the looks they would receive. Belle had been the one more worried about that, of course. Gold was just used to it. Most of their relationship had happened behind closed doors.
Including their first kiss, which Belle suddenly remembers was much more than it had been in their world. Their kiss there had been soft, sweet, chaste. But here where the rules were so different, it had been sudden and full of passion. She still didn't know how he did it, but he had lifted her and pushed her against the wall and when his lips crashed down on hers, she couldn't have cared about another thing in the world.
It had been a long time coming, the sort of unresolved tension that had been ready to bubble over for ages. They had been drawn to each other here, just as they had in their world. The curse had changed much, but it had not changed that.
Here Rumplestiltskin was quiet and reserved. When he asked her to marry him it had been done in an understated, yet unerringly romantic way. Looking into her memories, it was really exactly what she would have expected. Quiet date at his house, a beautiful antique ring that even now still graced her finger. Like everything else about him it was quiet and understated, but beautiful. And that's one thing she realizes about Rumplestiltskin and has for a long time. Beneath the dark and hard exterior he shows to the world, there's a beautiful man.
She smiles as she thinks of the wedding, only the fact that her father refused to show giving her any sort of pause about it. They had married by the well with only Ruby, Leroy, and Archie, who had officiated, present. The dress she had worn had been white, shorter than your average wedding dress, but decorated in lace. When Gold had seen her, he had simply frozen and she had watched one tear make its way down his cheek.
They had linked hands and before they even got to the vows, before they even got to we are gathered here today to, he had leaned over and whispered that he was the luckiest man to ever live. She had found a tear much like his own making its way down her cheek and he had brought his hand up, using his thumb to brush it away. "No tears. Not today." And she had smiled, because it was a joyous day even without her father there to give her away.
She blushes as her mind floats to the memories of that night. They're not real, she tells herself, yet they feel real. She remembers his undressing her, carefully, oh so carefully. She remembers the way his hands shook and she had to undo her own bra because his fingers fumbled so badly that he ended up cursing with frustration.
She remembers that she was so overwhelmed, so nervous about it all, that she could not find her own pleasure. She remembers that he was so scared and worried about her that he grew soft inside her and they had both exploded in nervous laughter. It was so very very awkward and even now she feels a sort of residual embarrassment for their attempts at a first time. The books she reads always describe beautiful moments of perfect pleasure, everything working as it should, finding their pleasure together. It seems that was not always so.
He was sweet. He was kind. They curled up and simply enjoyed each other, feeling the press of their still warm bodies together. She hadn't expected that out of him, really. She remembers feeling like a failure, like she wasn't good enough, and he had held her tight to him.
The embrace, the tears, the laughter…they had relaxed them into sleep and when they woke up in the middle of the night, everything felt much more natural. It wasn't perfect, Belle remembers. She had accidentally elbowed him in the ribs and once they knocked heads almost hard enough for her to see stars. But things had worked. And both had found their pleasure.
She bites her lip, tries not to smile as her mind pulls out the memories of making love by the fire, in the kitchen, and that one time in the stacks after the library closed. The last makes her hide her head in embarrassment as she remembers wrapping her legs around him and his pressing her up against the wall near the history section.
"Sweetheart!" She hears his voice come up the stairs and she smiles. He's home early from the pawnshop. With a sigh, she sets the memories aside. There are more, of course, so many more, a whole lifetime of memories.
But for now there's the real world. Or at least as real as this world is, with its hazy memories of a life not lived and the clearer memories of a world that is nothing more than fairytales here. At least here she has her Rumplestiltskin back.
"On my way, love!" she shouts and abandons those memories to make some more. Perhaps sometime she'll have to ask him about his own memories of their courtship and wedding.