The Hunchback

by WeAreDandelions

Barely remembered by anyone, an unnamed janitor cleaning the catacombs of the Storybrooke Hospital looks always in hope at the beautiful woman that passes his way every so often. He cannot remember though that he once knew her, loved her, and cared for her as he looked from afar in his bell tower, where he lived as the mysterious bell ringer.

1. Chapter 1

Long ago the walls became the symbol of his life's monotony. The white bricks layered, built up to stand united as an impenetrable structure, quickly made him feel isolated, as he was. The days were fluid, moving into each other with nothing new to face, completely uniform, and blurred together, making it impossible to tell if the day was Thursday or Saturday. There was, though, one marking of his days. It was never regular, always seemingly sporadic, but it was how he counted time. It's been 62 days, it's been 97 days. The hope that it inspired raised him from his pillow every morning and made it possible for him to continue his job.

Heels clicked down the hallway, and he looked up from the floor, breath caught in his lungs, just behind his teeth, stifling his tongue. Every day, he went to the hospital, pulled by hope from his house, and every day he mopped the floor, cleaned the walls sterile-white, and changed the sheets of the patient who had been kept locked away for as long as he could remember, and every day he waited for that sound. As she walked by, his head instinctively followed her, eyes drinking in her gorgeous appearance, ears lulled by the sound of heels rhythmically hitting the floor. And she never noticed. And she never looked at him. And she never spoke. But he knew her voice was as beautiful as she was. Even her name was beautiful. He had once caught it as the staff nurse down the hallway greeted her, plucking it from the still air as it dangled in front of him. "Hello Regina."

The bells rang again, indicating a new day begun in the middle of the night. A sigh penetrated the silence of the room, and a bed creaked as its inhabitant turned on her side. The day had been laden with the burden of travel, and Regina still felt as if the uneven carriage wheels rolled under her. She was growing increasingly melancholy through all of their travels from kingdom to kingdom, palace to palace, laying in guest room beds instead of her own and missing the familiarity of waking up to look at her own ceiling.

Prince Henry watched in exhaustion as Cora got into bed, pulling the covers up to her chin, all the while smiling and looking directly ahead of her. He knew she was peering into a world beyond theirs, where she was the mother of an all-powerful queen, living vicariously through her daughter. He hadn't rested easily in the past five years as Cora dragged her daughter from place to place, chasing after kings that he knew Regina would never love. But to make matters worse, Regina was utterly ignorant of her mother's motives, believing in inert good beyond a measure he had ever seen. He sighed as the bells began to strike twelve.

King George paced the length of his room, which quickly tired him out due to its size. He couldn't get the image of her out of his head. She was gorgeous. She was more than gorgeous. And he was interested, more than interested. As the bells rang powerfully, he wondered how he could possibly lure her into marrying him. He needed her now, and couldn't understand how she had not been snatched up yet. And her name seemed to pull him in closer as Cora introduced him when she stepped out of the carriage. "And this is my daughter Regina," she said as King George stared in infatuation. Eyebrows furrowed, he looked into his mirror, trying to formulate a way to corner her alone tomorrow, if only to chat with her as an excuse to behold her beauty.

As the last bell finished its triumphant ring, he swung over to the nearest rafter, quickly grabbing the base in a swift crouch. The bell tower was now silent, and the air was pleasantly warm. He hopped to the nearest stain glass window, twenty feet high and eight feet wide, and watched the moon and star light penetrate the window, lighting it up in magnificent color. Reds and blues shined on his face, which as deformed as it was, seemed ethereal in the light. He sighed in longing. For months now he felt as if a piece of his life had been taken from him, although nothing had changed. He began to long for human interaction beyond the walls of the castle, and it weighed heavily on him. He had heard though that visitors were at the palace, an occasion which hadn't occurred in a long time, and his spirits had brightened for that moment, until he remember his hunched back and his awkward gait. He sighed when he thought of his name, always said in distain by others, and now solemnly whispered by himself, "Quasimodo."