Forget Me Not
A "Once Upon a Time" Fan Fiction
Summary:
This is a one-shot featuring Gaston during his time in Storybrooke. Has flashbacks.
~0~
Twenty-eight years gave one many things to do. Mostly, it gave Mr. Rose time to think. He became very good at thinking. Memories in particular became his passion. There was no one else in Storybrooke with a memory like his. His deformity was a form of virtue in its way.
~0~
Only one other person came close to his capacity for remembrance. She called herself Regina Mills, but in the other world, she had been a queen. Her memory's reach was long but narrow. She paid attention to few things and even fewer people with zeal. Yet the special focus of her ire was a youngish woman with short dark hair, hazel eyes, and a face that seemed familiar.
Mr. Rose had seen her before in the other world. The woman's true name escaped him. He could not ask for it or anything else. He knew the faces of those around him although they did not know him. They never saw him and never addressed him. It would be futile to try. He had changed since then, changed beyond recognition, beyond speaking. His own mother and father did not know him. That might have set him to weeping were he still capable of it.
Instead, he focused inwardly, the only place he had left to go. Once he became used to it, he found hell wasn't as bad as he thought it might be.
~0~
The worst and last of his pain had been in the other world. The blinding violet smoke, the scream that never left his throat, the sudden revocation of all familiar senses.
Here, however, was none of that. Feeling fully was part of the Dark Curse, its curse. The creature had discussed that extraordinary curse with him, or perhaps it had only spoken aloud to its laboratory. He thought that second one unlikely; the beast delighted in performing to an audience. Back then, in a time that seemed so long ago, Mr. Rose had been worse than mute, worse than deformed. He had felt nothing save what he had been made to feel or hear. His captor knew precisely what the spell did and why. He did not doubt that after the years passed and the evidence piled. The feeling, the wakefulness, seemed to follow the monsters moods. The emotion did not matter so long as it was a deep one. He was grateful for any kind of sensitivity no matter why it occurred. Sometimes the monster had no awareness that its captive could listen. Mr. Rose drank those private rages and secrets in like water.
The creature likely imagined that feeling in Mr. Rose's state was a punishment. It was wrong in that. Knowing but not feeling, not hearing had nearly broken the captive. Years (by his reckoning) had passed in a dim awareness. Early on, he had heard her. The one whom he had traversed rivers and mountains for, the one trapped in this wicked place as much as he was. His lost bride had sounded so sweet, far sweeter than he could ever imagine her being while speaking with him. How could she speak in such tones when she was a prisoner? The monster must have bewitched her to speak like that.
Then something dark had passed. An altercation. A fight. He remembered hearing yelling, silence, shattering, weeping. The creature could cry.
Her sweet voice did not return. It, the monster, might have killed her. In his heart, or what had passed as his heart in his state, Mr. Rose knew that was a strong possibility. Monsters did not love. But he had heard since childhood's tales that monsters did not mourn either. Why then should it have wept?
~0~
Every so often, in this world and the next, he remembered her without wanting to do so. His memories seemed to stretch out for weeks. Not that he had a concept of time any longer. He liked to pretend he did, just to feel human again.
Their betrothal had been short. The ceaseless war had stunted courtships, lives, and everything else. Belle did not love him and he had not loved her. That had not been uncommon in those days. Love matches were the thing of folk tales for most people. He had been both fortunate and unfortunate to know for himself that such stories were not lies. True Love was real and rare, full of its own magic.
His mother and Sir Maurice arranged their first meeting at the spring festival. It was a mere formality; the others of marriageable age and appropriate status had died. There they were forced to dance amongst the nobles and the rabble. With the ogres so near, the celebrations had been moved indoors to the castle.
"Papa wonders if I should like you for my husband," Belle said.
Though he knew such words would come, they struck Gaston like a fist to his stomach. His face ached almost as terribly as his heart did. No, Amarante was dead. She would not mind this, she could not mind, she had not minded. He still felt the soft pressure of her thin hands - gods, they had been ashen with the loss of blood. The injuries showed where the chainmail had been torn through, practically shredded. Her smile had never seemed as bright as it had been on her deathbed. Her final words rang through him even now: "Live. Love ... another."
Though her hands had already slipped from him, he had said, "I promise."
He would keep that promise. He would love another, and if that love happened to be a sort of dim affection not unlike friendship, it would have to do. Belle looked nothing like his Amarante, too pale, too blue of eye, too short in limb. He could not imagine this slip of a woman fighting by his side. She was as unsuited to him as he was unsuited to her. But yes, this woman would have to do. Neither of them had many prospects and they could not afford to wait or travel for another match. Their parents were too agéd and the roads were too dangerous.
"My dear mother would like you to be my bride," he said to Belle, his tongue feeling like a leaden weight. "I fear they have decided it for us."
She watched him beneath half-lowered eyelashes. "Do you object?"
"I cannot. Do ... do you?"
She shook her head. "No."
It was not enthusiastic, but it was more than he could have expected of a stranger. In weeks, he learned that his bride to be had a friendly nature. Despite her oft-extended hand and welcoming words, he found himself standing apart from her. The promise from his dead lover cast a long shadow. This marriage would be his duty, not a pleasure. He could protect Belle, provide for her, treat her well, but he could not love her. Not like his first betrothed. In time, he might be able to speak to Belle without the conversation feeling like a betrayal. Someday there would be a fondness deep enough some might term love. Until then, he kept his thoughts on the war. Sometimes he still felt Amarante's hands in his. That feeling might be lost, he feared, if he kept his new fiancé too close.
Belle likely thought it coldness on his part. He knew what other things she thought of him; the castle echoed and he was not deaf. Rumors spread faster than fire on a high wind in such cramped quarters. Boring, shallow, a handsome face without a thought behind it. He pretended not to hear. If he could withstand a shattered heart, he could manage to ignore the times when others stepped on the shards.
The betrothal stood until the monster swept Belle away. That had been too much, the final lash. He had lost his promise and his second bride, not to an ogre this time but something far worse. Fool that he was, he would face down the Dark One and bring her back. No one deserved to be a captive to a monster. Or worse. His promise to Amarante would not, could not be forgotten. He wanted victory but prepared for his death.
If only death had come.
~0~
Most of his first few numb years were difficult to recall. Those had been spent in an agony of awareness, an incomplete existence, like grey mists interrupted suddenly by patches of color and sound. He had known he had changed but the world mostly swept around him - unless the creature willed otherwise. He passed time by remembering what he could, traveling the vistas of his own mind.
He had heard that the dying relived their lives in mere moments. He had months, perhaps years. After the Curse came, he had decades.
~0~
This new land had seemed too bright and riotous. Instinctively he had longed to retreat, wished for the dimness of his half-dead years. It would be, he had thought, a torture to know and not forget what he had been, a torment to see what he could not touch. To his horror, he was perfectly able to tell time in Storybrooke. The clarity would have driven him mad if he had not been able to fall into a dull grey state akin to sleep.
Others, save Regina, had not seemed aware of their amnesic states. Not even it, the monster, seemed to know. It had taken nearly a week of the little man passing to and fro in the pawnshop, but Mr. Rose eventually recognized the fellow's face. It was difficult to know it without all the dreadful magic clouding his appearance, but Gold had once been nothing like a simple man in the lost world.
That any kind of curse could rob the Dark One of its power astonished Mr. Rose. It would be a lie to say that it did not anger him as well. No amount of changing returned a conscience to Gold. The little man punished his enemies no matter their infractions. Even in a new world, some things could not change.
The unfairness had weighed on Mr. Rose for nearly five years (more or less; his reckoning of time was less than accurate. That was the fault of the outside world rather than his own. No one seemed to know the true passage of years.) Nevertheless, he had things to appreciate, he soon realized. He could know things others could not. He knew Regina remembered as he did because one day he found himself in her home.
~0~
Many years after the Dark Curse struck came the squalling of a child. The babe grew into a boy, the cruel queen into a mother. She was surprisingly disinclined to violence. Perhaps this world had softened her like all the others. Discipline of a physical nature seemed disdained here. Parents seemed too attached to their offspring. As Gaston, Mr. Rose had been cuffed across the ears as a child and it had done him no harm. After a teenage prank, he had been served a lashing across his legs. Took him months to walk properly again, but he had endured. Perplexing as some things were about this world, there were good qualities to it. He heard little of childhood diseases gutting the village called Storybrooke. Plagues did not sweep through like the seasons. Perhaps such things did not exist here. So many things escaped him. There were certain things he had difficulty knowing here. Reading the town charter - or anything else - was difficult to master without the use of his hands.
Despite all her knowledge, Regina did not know him, could not know him.
No one did. Not until after her boy's tenth day of birth.
~0~
Mr. Rose was relegated to some back room for the celebration. He did not mind. This was not the sort of party for listening, not with the party favors popping and the laughter and the sound of clanging toys and games.
He came out again when everyone was gone and presumably safe in their beds. The dark, the shadows, the silence, it belonged to him. It was like him, in a way. No one noticed the absence of dark - they saw only light instead. He was not mourned or missed. Sometimes he fancied it might be a great kindness for a fire to take him. It was a mercy that mother and father no longer knew him. They would wonder what had become of their son when he had thoughts like that.
~0~
A stranger came, a woman with golden hair. He saw her arrive at Regina's house. The town clock tolled not long after that. Later, another stranger arrived - some man on a motorcycle that Regina did not trust. Mr. Rose never got a look at that fellow. Things moved quickly in Storybrooke with the arrival of outsiders. He swore at himself for his cursed body, his feeble frame. He needed to know more. Memory was all he had, all he could manipulate in his small circle of the world. Without reason, he was moved into the deep, cold heart of the hospital. Sometimes he heard a sweet voice singing from one of the cells along the hall. He wondered, faintly, if it could be his betrothed. He dismissed the idea. She was long dead. The monster had killed her like so many others.
For a span of weeks, he was very bored. The place he was in seemed to be reserved for the mad and feeble. It was less exciting than he expected. The boredom did not last. The purple smoke rolled over him again, over everything.
"I remember," said the woman who had been a nurse. She turned to the tall man who had been sweeping seconds before. "Do you ...?"
Gaston, Gaston, I am Gaston Mr. Rose wanted to cry out. He had wanted to say that for years. The others had his clarity, his knowledge now. They did not hear during the Curse and they did not hear after the Curse. He could not move his mouth for he did not have one.
"I do," said the janitor. He had twisted his broom handle to pieces between his fists under cover of the smoke. He dropped the pieces and pushed his long hair from his face. "The curse, it's broken."
"Do you need to go?" the nurse said to the tall man.
"Yes. My daughter ... my Tiger Lily, she'll need me."
"Then go." The nurse opened the door and watched her coworker run. She returned to the desk, set her head in her hands, and cried.
Their curse, the Dark Curse was broken. Mr. Rose, nee Gaston, could do nothing more than listen to reunions, pleas, weeping, anger, and more. His personal curse refused to break. Only one fellow - or rather one monster - knew the truth. Gaston doubted he would ever live as a whole person again. Not if Rumpelstiltskin remained his one hope at freedom.
In all their adventures and misfortunes, no one in Storybrooke gave real thought to the single rose sitting in the hospital. They shunted him from desk to desk while he listened. He heard Belle more than once. She lived. The monster had not killed her. Perhaps if monsters could love, they could forgive, they could break a curse of their own making. Gaston felt hope. He knew it was stupid to do so, a hope in vain. He felt it all the same. It renewed his purpose. Amarante and her promise would not be forgotten.
And sometimes, when he truly wanted to feel - all the good and all of the bad and sometimes neither - he remembered his life as a man.