The next chapter I post will explain all of the Doctor Who stuff going on. The only two things that will be helpful to know now are that the Doctor is a Time Lord who (1) has two hearts and (2) can cheat death by regenerating into a new person, accompanied by lots of pretty gold light. Also, the Doctor you see first in this fanfic (the one with the bowtie) is the Eleventh Doctor performed by Matt Smith. He regenerates into our much loved Robert Carlyle. Oh, and the blue box that Belle takes such a liking to is called the Tardis. Much more on that later.
Final note to my fellow Whovians: Since I'm mixing worlds here, I'm taking some liberties with Doctor Who laws. You will see, for example, that there is no problem with a thirteenth regeneration in this story.
Final, final note to my fellow OUAT-ers but non-Whovians: Watch. Doctor. Who. You. Will. Love. It.
Belle found it on the night of her engagement to Gaston.
A box.
A blue box.
After the dinner held in their honor, she stood next to her new fiancé and smiled like the world wasn't suffocating and drowning her. She did everything proper that night. She shook hands. She said "thank you" and "in the spring" and "yes" too many times to count. She ignored Gaston's too tight grip on her arm as he led her to the center of the ballroom for their first dance as an engaged couple. She stood next to him as he drained yet another mug of beer and leered at the serving girl.
Belle was the ideal woman that evening—she had to be, for the survival of her people—and it was crushing her.
The second it was appropriate and not too early for the happy bride-to-be to duck out, she fled. She gave her apologies to the necessary lords and ladies, blaming a headache for her early retirement, and bowed a farewell to Gaston. He'd had too much to drink, as usual. His eyes were dim and unfocused, and he was barely able to stand without lurching. When he bent down to give her a sloppy kiss on the cheek, Belle clenched her jaw.
"Bet you can't wait for the spring, eh little pet?" he whispered at her ear, the hot breath of his words and the rank smell of alcohol making Belle want to squirm. "I know I can't."
He leaned even closer as though to grab her, a smirk twisting his face, and Belle jerked away. As he tried to regain his balance, she said, "Goodnight, Sir Gaston." And, without another glance back—and refusing to meet her father's eyes—she left the hall.
The raucous tune of the hired musicians and the clamor of guffaws and shrill voices gradually faded behind her. When the only noise was her own rapid footsteps echoing in the cool stone hallway, she finally let her mask fall in the drop of a single tear.
She was engaged. To Gaston. She would be his in the spring to give him a title and a brood of healthy sons. In six month's time, she would be caged, her dreams of traveling and exploring forever beyond her grasp. There was only one place left she could own and where she could breathe. Even though it was nearing three in the morning, Belle couldn't avoid the siren call of her final sanctuary, and it was without thought that her feet carried her to the library.
But that night—the second worst night of her life—even her sanctuary had been taken away.
After cracking the door open, she found an unsuspecting Lord engaged in less than lordly activities, necking one of the knight's daughters, and it was then, frozen in the doorway, that Belle was unsure if she'd be able to hold in the sob wringing her heart, unsure if she'd be able to survive the night, the week, the rest of her life with Sir Gaston.
Feeling the burn in her chest rise to her throat, Belle hastily grabbed the closest book she could get her hands on and spun away from the couple undetected. She didn't even know where she was walking. She just walked. Hallway after hallway, further and further from the library—her library, she viciously thought—as tears clouded the path before her. Everything seemed muted, the soldiers posted every other turn who threw her stiff salutes as she passed, the guttering torches, even the pain she felt with every step from the bloody, stupid shoes they'd forced her to wear for the engagement ball. For the first time that night, the crushing weight of the golden gown they'd thrown over her wasn't a nuisance. It was just—there.
"Has Belle already gone to bed?"
Belle instantly surfaced from the fog and felt panic claw her gut when she heard her father's voice from around the next corner. No, no, no! There was no way she could face him that night, not without breaking! As she heard him ask a servant to go check her quarters to make sure she had returned there after leaving the ball, Belle spun around and started to dart back down the long hallway she'd come, but she stopped just as quickly, knowing she'd never reach the end before he would turn the corner and see her. With his voice coming closer and closer, she angrily wiped the tears from her eyes so she could see better and desperately searched for an exit. When she caught sight of a massive tapestry hanging on the wall, almost as large as one of the dining tables, she leapt forward. Without thinking and without processing the woven design beyond catching a glimpse of the lonely black castle nestled between snowy peaks at the center, she peeled the tapestry aside and ducked behind it. She held her breath and disregarded the urge to itch her face as the coarse thread of the tapestry pressed against her skin.
"Let me know as soon as you find my daughter," King Maurice was saying, his voice slightly muted from the thickness of the tapestry. "If she isn't in her room, check the library. You know—" he stopped mid-sentence for one of his racking coughs "—you know how much she loves those books."
And with that, his voice disappeared down the next hallway. Belle was alone again.
Exhaling long and slow, closing her eyes, she leaned her head back against the cool, smooth stone and let her legs slowly melt beneath her, her back sliding down the wall. It was only when she'd nearly reached the ground that she felt the rivet in the stone pressing into her spine. Changing her slump to a kneel, she pivoted around and found a thin crack running up the wall, over, and down in the shape of a door. A hidden door.
Immediately, Belle's book fell to the floor and all thought of shoes and father and engagement swept away in the stir of something she hadn't felt in months: adventure. Excitement. Life.
She thought she had tracked down every hidden corridor and nook and cranny in the castle before she'd turned eleven, but apparently she'd missed one. Feeling a smile pull at her lips, she brushed her fingers over a circular knob in the center of the door and, biting her lip, she pushed it in. Smoothly and silently, the door swept inward, and Belle slowly stood up as a cold rush of musty air swept over her skin and brushed the curls from her face. The passage was too dark to see, so she crept back out from the tapestry, wrestled a torch free, and slipped back, her hands shaking with anticipation.
Well, she thought, looking into the narrow, low passage now lit from the torch's dancing flame, do the brave thing and bravery will follow.
And she crossed the threshold.
She felt a start of fear when the door slid shut behind her, but she clung to the torch tighter in her left hand, her book in her right, and kept going. The rock walls were roughly hewn, and she tripped twice on the uneven ground. The passageway was much longer than the other hidden corridors she'd found as a child, and after several minutes of nothing new, she felt a twinge of uneasiness about finding a way out. After another twelve paces, though, the passage exited into a round room with a dozen doors leading in different directions. On a whim, she started to go toward the oaken door directly in front of her when she felt it. Like nothing she had ever felt before. Breath of a windless wind brushing her cheek. Waterless ice running just under her skin along her arms and spine. And a wordless whisper—almost a voice, almost a song—in her mind.
She turned to her right. She approached the door with the scuffed rivet and brass doorknob. She moved as though summoned. And when she turned the handle, pushed the door in, and slipped out from behind a second tapestry, she saw it.
A blue box unlike anything she'd ever seen. Wooden, about the size of her dressing curtain, with small window panes and silver handles. There was a soft white light glowing from the glass and from a curious lantern on its top, and Belle could just make out a soft hum in the background. She couldn't shake the feeling that the thing—whatever it was—was alive. Breathing.
And…a she.
Belle wasn't sure where the notion came from, but she suddenly had the impression that the box wasn't an "it" at all. It was a "her."
Without tearing her eyes away—unable to, in fact—Belle set her book on the ground and quickly fitted the torch into the metal bracket behind her. Hands free, she edged her way closer, feeling the hair on her arms rise with each step. There were words on the box, written more finely than any ink she'd ever seen.
"Police Public Call Box," she read out loud, her voice a mere whisper but breaking through the still room. "Public Telephone. Free For Use of Public. Advice and Assistance Obtainable Immediately. Offices and Cars Respond to All Calls. Pull to Open."
Since "Pull to Open" was the only thing Belle had understood, she took the final step separating her from the blue box and, heart pounding, grabbed one of the silver handles. The metal was surprisingly warm in the cool room—as warm as Belle's own palm—but when Belle pulled, the door didn't budge. She tried again with a bit more force, but it remained closed. Her hand trailed down the wood and she traced a metal circle with a hole in it. A key hole.
"So what are you?" Belle whispered, half to herself, half to the thing, and while she heard no response, she felt a wave of something pulse through her chest.
For the next hour or two or three—Belle quickly lost track of the time—she circled the strange box, touched it, stared at it, all the while breathing in its strange hum and the even stranger current she felt coursing through her veins whenever she got close.
The room itself was quite large, about double the size of her royal bedroom, and while the blue box was the only item inside, it seemed to fill and command the space. Belle found a double door on the far other side of the room, and, curious to see which part of the castle she was in, she inched it open for a peek. There were five heavily armored guards standing with their backs to the door. And they weren't just any soldiers. Belle knew from the round red circle on each of their shoulders that they were from the Red Army, the smallest, highest, and most prestigious segment of the army—so high, in fact, that they were almost considered nobility. Gaston was the commander of the Red Army. Wondering why her new fiancé had never mentioned that he had an alien wardrobe under lock and key somewhere in the far western side of the castle, Belle painstakingly closed the door, desperately praying it wouldn't squeak, and tiptoed away from the door. She bit her lip. Did her father know about it? And (as she turned back to face the glowing, humming box) why was he or Gaston or the both of them keeping it—her—a secret? Was it dangerous?
No, Belle thought to herself, laying a hand on the wood and closing her eyes as the hum entered her blood, not dangerous. She felt…different here in the strange glow of the box's light. She felt free. Safe.
But at the same time, Belle also had the sense that the box had the potential for horrific, massive destruction. She wasn't sure how she knew that; she just did. In the wrong hands, it could be deadly. Hands like Gaston's. Belle wondered if he'd ever been able to open it, and, at the thought of someone opening the blue door, she immediately felt a shiver pass from the box to her hand and flutter throughout the rest of her body. And with it, an image flashed through Belle's mind.
A woman. With raven hair. Red lips. Dark eyes. She had a black-gloved hand on the surface of the blue box, and the woman was smiling, laughing, but it was cold and…evil.
Belle's eyes snapped open and she took an instinctive step back, ripping her hand off of the box. As soon as she was no longer touching the wood, the image faded away but the dread remained because Belle knew who that woman was.
Regina. The Evil Queen.
Belle had only seen Regina once, about a year and a half ago when the Queen had met with her father and Gaston in secret. King Maurice had sent Belle to her quarters for the entirety of Regina's one-day visit, but she'd watched the woman arrive from her bedroom window. Belle could still remember the fear she'd seen on her people's faces as the Queen had rolled up in her black carriage, surrounded by her black guard. At the time, Belle had had no clue why her father—a man she had respected—would ever meet with such a person. There were whispers of what the Evil Queen could do, what she had done, what she wanted to do, and even if only a tenth of those whispers were true, it was enough to make any good man—and plenty of bad men—pull away in fright. For Belle, knowing that Regina was in the castle meeting with her father had indeed made her scared, but not for herself. She had been afraid for her people. For her father. And for whatever black, black reason he had been compelled to associate with the Evil Queen.
Could this be the reason?
Belle again stepped closer to the blue box, heard its hum and felt its light. Had her father and Gaston summoned Regina because this—whatever it was—had been found? And if it was still here, did that mean the Evil Queen had never been able to open it? Having seen the image of the woman putting her gloved hand on the wood had made Belle feel sick for some reason, but the thought of the Evil Queen taking possession of it—of her—made Belle feel even worse.
Somehow, Belle knew that Regina had not been successful. And it made her heart drum with relief.
She circled the box a few more times, but when her screaming feet demanded to be acknowledged, she sat against the wall, staring at the box of blue and idly turning the pages to the book she'd taken from the library earlier. She didn't even bother to read the words of what turned out to be a remarkably dry and simply illustrated copy of Herbs and Grasses of the Middle Frontlands. She simply turned page after page, letting the smell and the feel calm her (as her books always did) and keeping her eyes trained on her newest sanctuary.
And sanctuary it did become.
Belle returned the next night and the next and the next after that. For five months, she came as often as she could without drawing suspicion. She'd even started keeping spare books, food, blankets, and pillows in the stone passageway behind the tapestry so that she wouldn't have to keep dragging things back and forth. At first, she'd read along the outer wall, growing accustomed to the blue box's strange hum. Within a month, though, she started to read with her back against the box itself, feeling that hum course through her body. And within a month after that, she began to read out loud or even talk to her. She told the blue box when the first snows fell and about the day Gaston had repeatedly used the word "scoreggiare" instead of "scoraggiare" in his pompous welcoming speech to the Italian ambassador. Her father had turned steadily redder and Belle had almost died on the spot from trying to hold in her laughing. One particularly bleak day, the anniversary of her mother's death, she'd even talked about what had happened to her mother and what few memories she had left of her, things Belle had never shared with anyone. But whatever it was—description of what new stupid thing Gaston had done or painful memories from the past—Belle was always careful to be quiet enough that the soldiers posted outside the door wouldn't hear.
At one point, Belle had gone looking for the exact location of the room. She knew it had to be somewhere in the castle's right wing, low to the ground level or even lower, but she'd quickly gotten lost in the twists and turns of the dank, dark area. A soldier (one from the Red Army, she'd noted) had eventually found her and had hastily escorted her back to her quarters. The very next day, her father had assigned her a new maidservant—the prickly, wrinkled, stern Veronica with a face to melt the devil—who just happened to never leave Belle's side except on rare occasions. Belle hadn't dared go looking for the outside door to the room again, but that hadn't stopped her nighttime visits through the tapestry, along the cramped hidden passageway, and out the second tapestry. It was, she'd decided, the only thing keeping her sane. After all, it was the only place she could still read without either Veronica or Gaston snatching her book away while delivering a lecture on the proper role women should hold in society.
"After all," Gaston had told Belle only that night after dinner with his strong arm wrapped too tightly about her waist, "we are to be wedded next month. And I don't want a silly wife."
You don't want a wife at all. You want a title, Belle had been tempted to say, but she'd held her tongue in time, aware of her father's eyes carefully watching her.
The door suddenly banged open and a soldier from the Red Army rushed to Gaston's side, whispering a few hurried words into his ear. Immediately, Gaston's face changed, his idle expression being replaced by the face of a hardened, imposing commander.
"Go to your room, Belle," he sharply said as the soldier whispered the same words into Maurice's ear.
"But—" Belle started to say, seeing her father's face pale.
"You will obey me!" Gaston roared.
Every cell in Belle's body wanted to rebel, but her father's quiet voice stopped her.
"Please, dearest," he said. "I need—"
An abrupt fit of coughing ransacked his body, and Belle hastened forward to support him before he lost his balance.
As soon as he got control of himself, Maurice gave her a small smile. "Thank you, my beautiful girl," he whispered, tucking one of her curls behind her ear. His eyes scoured her face, and his smile became tired, sad.
He still cares, Belle realized.
"Papa?" The word broke, quiet and hesitant, from Belle's lips.
And then the moment ended. Maurice looked over Belle's shoulder to Veronica, and he motioned the maidservant forward with his head. Belle felt Veronica's spidery cold hands replace her father's warm ones.
"Let us go, girl," Veronica said, pulling Belle away, and Belle let herself be led, watching her father watch her as Gaston whispered urgently in his ear.
Belle didn't open a book when she returned to her quarters. As soon as Veronica assisted her out of her dress and into her nightgown, Belle simply curled up on the bed and stared at the dancing flames in the fireplace. She was barely even aware of the door closing behind Veronica. Her mind kept replaying the look on her father's face, the care—and love—that he hadn't betrayed in what felt like years.
And, as confused as her feelings were at that moment, she knew there was only one place in the castle she wanted to be.
Darting upright so quickly she had to pause to let her vision clear, she pushed her feet into slippers and ducked out of her room. She made her way down to the hidden passageway, timing each corridor perfectly so as to avoid guards and servants, knowing and walking the route like clockwork after the five months she'd made the trip in secret. And when she finally made it to the room with her blue box, she felt the whirlwind in her heart begin to soften. She drew in a long, slow breath, resting against the wall with one hand still clinging to the tapestry as she let the box's hum and white light wash over her.
It was, indeed, her final sanctuary, with one month left before her engagement to a man she did not love, and with a father who might actually still care.
She smiled.
"I feel like reading some fairytales tonight," she said. "How about you?"
But there would be no fairytales. And there was, like usual, no response from her.
Instead, Belle heard a different sound that sent a chill deep into her gut. Muffled voices. A loud command. The room's double doors being unlocked.
Right as the doors were being opened, Belle slipped back behind the tapestry, feeling her hands tremble as her last sanctuary—like her once beloved library—was invaded.
"You seven, guard the passageway," she heard Gaston order. "And you two, with us."
"Like we'd ever need them," a woman's voice said, and Belle felt a chill.
It was the Evil Queen.
There was a small blip of light passing through on the other side of the tapestry, and Belle slowly inched towards it, putting her eye at the tear barely large enough to allow her to see. But see she did. And yes, Regina was here.
The woman was wearing a black cape with large spiky things coming out of the top, and the bottom several inches of the cape was dark red as though dipped in fresh blood. The same color was applied with painstaking care on her lips while her eyelashes, perfectly manicured eyebrows, and the rims of her eyes were black, standing out from her fair face.
But what captured Belle's attention even more was the man being hauled in behind her, his shoes dragging on the ground. Even though he was not standing, it was obvious that he was quite tall with long gangly limbs, and as the guards dumped him unceremoniously onto the ground, Belle could see why he was not walking on his own. His left leg was crooked severely to the side as though it had been broken then healed in that position, and Belle guessed that the man could probably only shuffle about and only then with severe pain. His strange clothes were in tatters, and the dirty, stained bowtie under his bearded chin was half unraveled. His head was bowed, and his hair was just long enough to conceal his face. The man was, in one word, beaten.
What had happened to him?
"So, what will it be, Doctor?" Regina asked, and Belle had to turn her head slightly so that she could see the woman through the small hole in the tapestry. The Evil Queen had one finger trailing down the side of the blue box, slowly, almost sensually, and Belle shuddered. "I have grown weary of waiting," Regina continued. "Open the door or you will die."
There was no response.
Regina sighed, turning back to face the man on the ground. "Gaston," she lazily said, "would you please?"
Belle nearly cried out loud when her fiancé delivered a quick, hard kick to the man's gut. Then a second. And a third. On the last, the force of the blow threw the man to his back, and Belle could see the pain on his face—a face that seemed so young yet so old at the same time. But even with that pain and even with the blood dripping from his mouth, the man started to laugh. He was laughing as though Regina had just told the best joke of all.
"I really am getting too old for this world," he said and, with difficulty, he pushed himself up to a kneeling position and spread his arms, calling out in a clear, insolent voice. "Do your worse, witch! You know I won't yield—why would I now after all you've done? So. Bring. It. On!" He pounded his chest on the last word.
Without command from Regina this time, Gaston delivered a sharp jab to the man's ribs and he bowed forward for a moment before sitting back upright and spreading his arms once more.
"You have nothing left to take from me," the man said in a low voice.
Regina's smile broke into a cold stare. Then, in one fluid move, she rushed forward and jammed her hand into the man's chest. He gasped, and Belle stuffed her fist in her mouth and bit down hard to keep herself from shouting out as the Evil Queen ripped her fist back out and the smile returned to her face. She was holding the man's heart in her hand. His living, beating, red and black heart.
"So be it," she lowly said, face close to his, and she clenched her fist. The man twisted with a groan, falling forward onto his hands, as the heart in Regina's fist—his heart—turned to dust. With a satisfied grin, she opened her hand and the dust slipped through her fingers to the floor.
Belle stood there, shocked, a small drop of blood trailing down her arm from where she'd bitten through the skin.
He was dead. Just like that—dead.
Or, wait…
His hand twitched. He grunted. His head slowly lifted and, looking at the Evil Queen through his hair, he roughly said, "You'll have to take the other one too if you want to kill me that way."
The Evil Queen stared at him, her face betraying her shock.
"But how…what—"
The man spat out blood from his mouth and stiffly stumbled to his feet, putting all his weight on his good leg. "Haven't you learned?" He leaned forward, his chin set in a grimace. "I don't go down easily." He spread his arms out for the third time, and, in a sudden loud, defiant voice, louder than before, said, "So again, witch: do your best! You want my life? COME AND GET IT!"
The scene was frozen before Belle's eyes. The Evil Queen in all her resplendent malevolence, face set in uncertainty, surprise. Gaston, his hand on the hilt of his sword, waiting to act on her command. And the man—the beaten man with the stained bowtie—standing on broken leg with arms outstretched, chin jutting forward, eyes carrying the wrath of worlds.
If everything weren't so horrific, Belle would call it beautiful.
But then came the hardness back into the Queen's black eyes. Then came the swift command: "Kill him." And then followed the even swifter response.
"No!" Belle cried right as Gaston unsheathed his sword and plunged it into the man's stomach.
Belle clawed her way out from behind the tapestry and ran toward the man, screaming and kicking when she felt strong arms restrain her.
The man looked down at the sword then back up to Regina. A small, contented smile lit his face, a twinkle at his eye. "Geronimo," he whispered.
And he fell.
The room dimmed. The guards seemed to be dragging Belle somewhere but she didn't care. Gaston was shouting something at her but she didn't understand. The Evil Queen was moving but she didn't see where. Her eyes were fixed on the man, lying on the ground, bathed in the white light of the blue box.
Smack!
Belle heard Gaston strike her cheek before she felt it, and she tore her eyes away from the man's lifeless body to the enraged face of her fiancé. He was shaking her.
"How did you get in here? Why can't you be like every other woman and—"
"Sir Gaston!" one of the soldiers interrupted, gesturing wildly.
Belle looked and felt her heart leap. The man, who should have died twice now, was getting back up, gold light dancing along his hands and face.
"You really shouldn't have done that to the girl, dearie," he said to Gaston, anger heavy on his tongue and face.
After a split moment of disbelief, Gaston's training kicked in and he charged forward, holding his still bloody sword at the ready. He never even got close. The man thrust his hand out in Gaston's direction, and a jet of pure, hot, golden light streamed forward, smashing into Gaston and throwing him into the wall. Wheeling his arms around, the man next sent a jet of gold against the two guards still holding onto Belle, and Belle felt her entire body jump with energy as she was bathed in the light while the two guards were carried headlong by the same light and smashed into the stone. The man spun on his one good leg right as the soldiers from the hallway crashed in, and he threw his hands in their direction, fingers splayed and emitting another forceful stream of gold. All seven of the soldiers were swept back, unconscious before they even hit the stone floor.
"Behind you!" Belle cried when she saw the Evil Queen flip her hand and a ball of fire popped into life.
He whirled about. She threw the fireball, and it dissipated the second it touched his outstretched golden-gleaming hand. And with three shuffled steps forward, the man shot out a final jet of golden light and sustained it so that Regina slammed into the wall and stayed upright, squirming as she tried to get free.
"You took everything from me!" he yelled as he continued to limp forward, his young face snared in an all-consuming, black fury.
Belle noticed that some of the light was traveling down to tangle about his leg. It was somehow straightening and fixing the limb, and as the leg righted itself with every step he took, the man quickened his pace. He leaned down to grab a sheathed sword from one of the fallen soldiers and hurled himself at the Queen, trapping her neck with the scabbard of the sword, pressing it down on either side and nearly choking her.
"What magic is this?" Regina asked, eyes wide with fear.
"She was innocent, she had nothing to do with this, and you killed her before my very eyes!" he shouted, ignoring her question, spittle spewing from his mouth in his rage. "You killed—" he broke off, clearly fighting off a sob, and his next words came quieter. "She was my friend. I was her protector. And you—" He again broke off, closing his eyes and bowing his head for a moment. When he lifted his face back up, it was cold. Dark. "And you killed her. Her and others." The words were low. Deathly low.
When he said nothing more, Regina whispered, "What are you?"
"I am fire and ice and rage. I am the night and the storm in the heart of the sun." His voice was steadily rising. "I am ancient and forever. I burn at the centre of time and can see the turn of the universe!"
Regina's eyes were open wide and she struggled to get free. He pressed the scabbard down harder, choking her.
"I am the Bringer of Darkness, the Oncoming Storm!" he was yelling now, and Regina couldn't breathe.
He was killing her.
Belle hurried forward. "Wait, stop!" she cried.
"I am the Great Exterminator!" he shouted.
She put her hand on his arm. "She's dying!"
"I am the Destroyer of Worlds!" he shouted, completely oblivious to Belle, eyes wild. "I am the Destroyer of my own world, my own people! I erased them and all of their—"
"Please!" Belle cried out, moving her hand to his cheek.
The effect was immediate. His dark eyes met Belle's, and he instantly stilled. The wrath leaked from his face, and even the strange gold light dancing on his skin and hands disappeared. He looked at Belle, looked down to the scabbard he was still holding tight against Regina's neck, and he instantly dropped it as though it had suddenly burned him, backing away with mouth slightly open and eyes wide. He stared down at his hands, opening them in front of him.
For a long moment, the only sound was Regina, still trapped to the wall by the last remains of golden light, gasping for breath.
When the man didn't move, only stood there, staring at his hands with a completely blank expression on his face, Belle took a hesitant step forward. His eyes darted up and she froze. They stared at each other—the golden man and the girl in the blue nightgown—and Belle stopped breathing.
And then he took three long, limping steps back to Regina and thrust his face in hers. She flinched.
"You will leave," he quietly said, pointing one long, slender finger at her. "You will never seek the Tardis again. If you do—" he paused "—I will kill you."
Belle felt the words like a chill wind to the face. Something was…amiss about this man saying those words. They felt…wrong coming from him. True, oh yes, true. Belle had no doubt he meant what he was saying. But wrong all the same.
"One last thing, just one," he said, his chin jutting out again. "That girl you murdered in front of my eyes. Did you ever learn her name? Eh? Did you even care?"
Regina's face was carefully blank.
"It was Mary Margaret." The name rolled out of his mouth as though he were tasting it. He gave a small smile, but it was slightly delirious, slightly off. "She was pregnant. Did you know that? First child. She was going to name her Emma," he said, the feverish good humor continuing. "This was her final trip with me, one last goodbye before we parted ways forever. And you know what I told her husband? Do you know what I said?"
When he leaned in even closer, Regina moved her head back as far as she could. The tendons in her neck stood out.
"I promised him I'd return his wife and child to him." The smile disappeared and Belle could see the tears in his eyes as he fought off emotion. "I promised." The words were broken. Whispered. And, having spoken them, he bowed his head, his hair hiding his face, and took one, two, three staggering steps back. "Now go."
The gold light holding Regina bound disappeared, and in a swirl of purple ink, she instantly vanished.
The man fell to his knees.
"Thank you," he whispered after a while. "For stopping me."
Belle slowly walked closer and fell to her own knees in front of him. He didn't look up. "Who are you?" she asked.
He laughed. It had an aftertaste of the bitter. "You know what, dearie?" he asked, raising his head to look her directly in the eye. "I really don't know any more."
And then he exploded in golden light again and Belle leapt to her feet in shock. Where before she had been able to see his face and hands when the light had swirled over his skin, now it was only pure, gleaming, golden light shrouding his features. His hands were outstretched and the light was shooting from his fingers, from his head, and Belle had to shade her eyes from the brightness. With eyes averted, she noticed that the blue box, too, was shimmering, swathed in the same golden light. And then, almost as quickly as it had happened, it ended, and the room returned to its darkness, lighted only by the dim white glow of the blue box.
"What was—" Belle started to ask, but the words stopped in her mouth when she looked back to the man.
He was completely different. Same clothes. Different face. Different body. Different—everything.
His hair was longer, some of it reaching to his shoulders, and his face was older. Harder. His nose was long and angular, his eyes deep and shielded. He struggled up, and Belle realized he was now much shorter, only a little taller than herself. When he took a small step forward, he winced and started to fall. Instinctively, Belle rushed forward and caught him, supporting his weight. His face was inches from hers, and after they stabilized, he looked at her. Studied her.
"Your eyes," he whispered. His voice was different. The accent changed.
He lightly placed three fingers on her cheek, directly below her eye, and Belle felt her skin tingle.
"Tardis blue," he said, his own eyes softening the smallest of a fraction.
And then they rolled back into his head and he collapsed.
"Wait! Sir! Sir!" Belle cried, sinking under his weight. They fell to the ground in a tangle, and Belle desperately shook his shoulder. "Please, wake up!" She quickly bent down, her cheek at his mouth, and felt a surge of relief when she detected the faintest stir of air.
At least the golden man was still alive.
Her relief, however, was short-lived. She heard a groan behind her, and she craned her neck around to see Gaston shifting.
"You have to wake up now!" she cried, turning back to the man and shaking him, begging him to wake up, slapping his face. When there was no response, she leapt up and started to drag him by his arms towards the tapestry, but the two guards were in front of it and they, too, were starting to stir. So instead, she dragged him to the blue box, sitting him up against the wood. She knelt down beside him and shook him even harder. "Please!" She leaned down, feeling tears on her cheeks, and whispered in his ear, "Help me!"
And, with a click, the door to the blue box opened.
[btw – I DON'T OWN OUAT OR DOCTOR WHO. If I did, I'd probably kill off Mr. Gold in a fantastically splendid way (lots of tears), kill off Capaldi (the current Doctor), and make Robert Carlyle the Thirteenth Doctor. Gosh. Now I'm sounding like Regina with all this killing… btw#2 – If you are not a Whovian and have questions about something Time-Lord-y or timey-wimey in this chapter, let me know in a comment and I'll answer your question either in my next post or in a note.]