A/N: Thank you to everyone who took the time to review the previous chapter. Now will Belle make it back to the Dark Castle? Read on to find out! ;)
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 3
Spinning to forget had always worked for Rumpelstiltskin before, and yet when it came to Belle he had doubted it would. He had lied to her when he pretended that Baelfire had slipped from his mind during his eternal task. Of course a person loved and lost could never be so easily cast aside by anyone, not even a creature as dark as he.
It was but a few short days since Belle left the Dark Castle at Rumpelstiltskin's own instruction, and yet it felt like a lifetime had passed. First he wondered if she might try to return, which would not make him unhappy, though he was the one to order her out. Then he considered giving chase, trying to track her down and bring her back, angry because she broke their deal. He could destroy her entire village or rather ensure the ogres did since she was now gone from the castle. The fact he told her to go was mere details, a trivial thing that someone as powerful as he could easily wriggle out of. Then had come the crashing blow that Belle would never come back, by her own means or otherwise, because she was dead.
Rumpel felt like he ought to have known, that he ought to have felt her loss before he was ever told of it. Surely when two people felt true love for each other, they ought to be bound tight enough to simply know when the other was no longer of the world. He had tried to deny he felt anything for her, of course he had. It was out of necessity, out of pride, for a hundred reasons he might explain and a hundred more he never could. It didn't mean he didn't feel. The scaly looking skin and dark power within him hid the man from view, but he was still there, buried deep. There was a heart inside of Rumpelstilstkin's goblin-like body, and it could love. He barely believed it himself until it was too late, until it had happened and he had fallen for his beautiful brave Belle.
Now she was gone, and he had already shed tears over her, destroyed furniture over her. There was no point to any of it. She was done for this world and he went on, had to go on, there was no other option. Rumpel tried to fool himself that moving on would be easy but with each passing hour that turned into days, he realised he was so very wrong.
Getting up from the spinning wheel, he wandered over to the plinth that held the chipped teacup that now meant so much. He picked it up as gently as butterfly wings, though his fingers were gnarled and bore sharp nails like a beast. Dear sweet delicate Belle had not seen a monster when she looked upon him, not at the end. She saw the man inside that even Rumpelstiltskin himself had believed to be long gone. Not so, apparently.
A loud rapping on the front door startled the usually highly-aware Rumpel into almost dropping his precious cup on the floor. He cradled it close to his chest a moment, letting out a breath of pure relief before placing the cup carefully back in its rightful place. A sneer came to his face then, angry as he was at the intrusion of visitors when he was mourning the loss of one so dear. If this was Regina again, he swore to skin her alive on sight, though he doubted so much that she would bother to knock, she never had before.
Sweeping his arms out wide, Rumpelstiltskin flung the doors to the room open, and then the next set til he reached the front door, upon which someone was beating their fists as if desperate. That at least made Rumpel want to smile a little. Desperate souls were of use to him. A profitable deal could almost always be struck in a person's hour of need.
Flinging wide the large wooden door to the castle, Rumpelstiltskin was not overly surprised when the person on the other side came tumbling in, practically landing in a heap at his feet. What did shock him to the core was the realisation of who the young woman there on the ground appeared to be.
"You are here," she gasped, as she peered up at him, smiling through what appeared to be exhaustion and pain.
"Belle?" Rumpelstiltskin was troubled by the sight of her, and not just because she was muddied and bruised.
This couldn't be real. Regina had said, with no small amount of glee, that his beloved Belle was dead and gone. It looked distinctly as if the torture she was supposed to have suffered was real, and yet he had to wonder if this was even Belle at all.
"It is me, Rumpel," she assured him as she fought to pull herself to her feet and then reach for him.
Rumpelstiltskin moved back a step quickly, putting up a hand to make her stop.
"No," he said firmly. "You are not Belle. You are one the Queen's evil tricks, come to play games with the mind of the Dark One!" he told her angrily.
Belle felt positively sick. After all she had been through, all she had suffered to get back here, and still dear Rumpel seemed to believe she was a traitor. If she did not know his untrusting temperament, the reasons for his suspicions, she might be thoroughly offended and run screaming in the opposite direction. The truth was, he had suffered too. He had learnt to be guarded and careful, even though he had more power than most or even all the other people or creatures of any kingdom in the land.
"I would never work for the Queen!" she cried desperately, stepping forward and watching him step back again.
She might think him afraid of her rather than how they had begun much the other way around. She had him backed up inside the castle within three steps, and though he continued to shy away and stare at her strangely, he had yet to throw her out or bar a door against her. Belle took that as a good sign.
"She did this to me! She had me captured and locked up in her dungeon! I thought I should never see you again!" she told him, tears in her eyes that she couldn't stop from coming. "You know it is me, I know you do," she insisted, watching him watching her with narrowed, troubled eyes.
Rumpelstiltskin genuinely was not sure what to make of this. To call Belle a liar was to make Regina the bearer of true and shocking news. It would be easier to believe his beloved girl was here, that the Queen had tried once again to pull the wool over his powerful eyes with her tricks. Searching deep inside himself, Rumpel reached out with the full strength of the power he possessed, eyes closing momentarily as he concentrated. Belle was almost certain she felt a breath of wind breeze pass her, and then he opened his eyes and smiled, albeit only slightly.
"It is you," he declared, certain of it now as he was certain of anything apparently.
It thrilled Belle that he would even believe she were real, though it was a small step to be taken on a very long journey yet. The front door boomed loudly as it closed behind her, though Belle did not jump at all, she was focused only on what Rumpel would say or do next.
"Come in," he urged her to follow as he backed up through the doors, locking them behind her as she came, until they were back in the main hall of the castle where his spinning wheel and the precious chipped cup lived on.
"I am so glad you believe me," Belle told him, trying not to cry but finding the relief more difficult to control than her previous pain. "I was sure you would eventually. The Queen is not stronger than true love".
Rumpelstiltskin flinched at the sound of those words though he could not quite keep the smile off his face. He had never felt so conflicted the whole of his days, human and creature both. Belle was not dead, but very much alive and here, and apparently in love with him. These things should please him, they did please him, and yet he was as angry as he was happy.
Regina still had her plans to use Belle against him. She had come here with tales of the young maiden's torture and death, made Rumpel believe King Maurice was the one at fault. Instead she had taken the girl herself, locked her away and punished her for being fool enough to love a beast like him. It was only when Belle reacted to it that Rumpel realised how much of his thoughts had spilled out of his mouth unbidden. Striding around the room, he had muttered out all of this, amongst obscenities and threats enough to shock her.
"Please, Rumpel," she urged him, getting in his path as he started another circuit around the table. "Please, do not give in to anger. You were right, the Queen wants to make you weak, she wants to use me against you, but we don't have to let that happen," she swore, her hands at his shoulders. "I am willing to fight for our love, and I wish... I wish you would tell me the truth of your love for me and fight for it too," she said firmly.
Rumpelstiltskin hardly noticed her hand slip to her pocket until she flung something at him. The cloud of dust made him cough and splutter as it covered his face. He pushed her away as he tried to clear his eyes and nose of the wretched powder.
Belle held her breath, waiting for the outcome she so longed for, waiting to hear her dearest love tell her that he felt the same. Her heart threatened to break in her chest when instead she heard a cackle of maniacal laughter erupting from inside the lessening cloud of fairy dust.
"Foolish girl!" he said, disappearing and reappearing in a flash behind Belle and startling her to no end. "You think you can use that wretched stuff on me? My power is more than you can begin to imagine!" he yelled in her face, backing Belle up against the tables edge and leaning over her. "You cannot love me! I cannot love you! What did you think you were doing?!"
"I was fighting for what I believe in!" she yelled back at him, determined that after all she had been through, she was not going to back down now. "And you can try to frighten and bully me, but you can't change what you feel. You might be immune to fairy dust, Rumpelstiltskin, but I will never believe you are immune to love!" she told him, finding a strength inside to even rival his own as she pushed him aside and walked away.
The Dark One was astounded. He had not imagined such ferocity could come out of his little Belle. She had strength of character and of heart, this he knew and admired, but to be so angry, so vicious. There was not a hint of fear left in her when she looked at him. She fought back without a care. It could be she felt she had nothing left to lose anymore, and yet, Rumpelstiltskin had to wonder, was she actually just this brave because what she said was true?
It ought to be impossible for a beauty to love a beast. It ought to be impossible for a beast to love at all, and yet... and yet there was still a man's heart beating inside the monster, and on it a five letter name engraved forever.
"Belle," he spoke cautiously, like a child afraid of being struck for talking out of turn. "I am sorry," he told her gently, reaching out a hand that could never touch her at such a distance.
"You should be," she shot back over her shoulder. "You punish me for being in love, you punish yourself!" she told him crossly as she turned back to look at him with her arms folded over her chest. "I don't understand!"
Rumpelstilitskin sighed a heavy sigh.
"Of course you don't, dearie," he relented, hardly looking at her at all. "You do not understand what cannot be explained," he told her sadly.
It was true. There was no way for an innocent young girl to understand a century of pain and curses and war, no matter how much fire in her belly or love in her heart. Rumpelstlitskin had no way to tell her all that was coming, and would not want to burden her with it even if he could. Still, he had no doubt of her affection for him, however misguided, and with the Queen out to get her, he knew he must keep her safe, or forever loathe himself in this world and the next.
"Love does not live here, sweet Belle" he told her sadly, "but sanctuary, that could be found".
His offer confused her, it confused him too for he knew the pain it would ultimately cause. Two people in love who must live together but never be truly close, it was tragic in the extreme, but their options were limited.
"What are you saying?" the poor girl asked with a look of pure confusion.
"Still need a caretaker for this rather large estate," Rumpelstiltskin echoed words he had used when they first met, trying so hard to lighten the mood of a situation more dark and dank even than the castle in which they stood.
Belle was too busy considering his offer to catch the reference to an earlier conversation. She must love Rumpel from a distance as before, but she would have his companionship as well as his protection. There would be no worry of the Queen coming after her again. Things would not be so very bad, even if her heart must be locked in a box inside of her, and never spoken of.
"We would be as we were before?" she checked she understood the agreement. "Before we...?"
"The original deal, as originally struck," he cut in quickly, a snap of his fingers punctuating the words he said before she had a chance to speak her own that would pain him.
"Very well," Belle agreed with a single nod and an extension of her hand to shake on the reaffirmation of the old deal made months ago.
Rumpelstilskin reached tentatively to take her fingers with his own for all of a moment, and as they let go within seconds, both knew they must not touch even this much again if they were to keep their bargain. It was Belle that spoke the words she expected from him that never came this time;
"The deal is struck."
To Be Continued...
