There have been so many people who've favorited or started following this story, so to all the newcomers, welcome! And to all those who've been reading since the beginning, I'm glad you've stuck around. In case anyone is interested, I'll be posting a one-shot companion piece to this fic, either tomorrow or the day after, called Playing with Death, so yeah if anyone's interested in that then you should totally check it out. Enough advertising, let us continue, readers!


The ease with which the deal was struck is a great relief to Rumpelstiltskin. He does not know what he would not have relinquished to Belle in order to retrieve his spinning wheel unharmed. She could have requested anything, to write to her father, relief from her duties, even freedom. And yet, despite the fact that she could have asked for any of her desires, for he can see that she has many, she requested only answers. She could have even insisted on mandatory amounts of contact with one another, since lack of companionship is what ruffled her feathers in the first place.

Answers can be dangerous, for knowledge is power. While he would not previously have thought of Belle as an enemy, this anger she is harboring certainly managed to startle him. Before her ailment, she bore him no ill will, but now? Well, now he cannot tell. However, this does not matter in regards to her wish. Despite what he may tell her, which in the end must be the truth (clever girl), it poses no threat to him. There is no one with whom she could share his secrets. Should he tell her how to take his power away, all that will result is another bout of life-threatening darkness if she attempts anything. He is the one with the power, and nothing he reveals will change that.

Standing so close to Belle, closer than he wishes to be, he detects a faint odor about her. Subtle, smoky. What was she up to, he wonders, rolling about in a fireplace? Ah, there, around her eyes, he spots what appear to be ashes. An improvisation in regards to cosmetics, perhaps, to bring attention to her eyes. And such lovely, periwinkle orbs they are. However, this is no new observation by any means. No, he has always been aware of the loveliness of her eyes. What catches his attention quickly afterward is that this smokiness is the most obvious scent wafting about her. There is a bit of melancholy and rage, but those are fading. Even less than those, he detects her innocence. It is still there, but muted, without that same headiness. More importantly, it fails to arouse anything within him. The potion is a success thus far.

Once the axe is in place, he asks, "Tea?" for it would be a waste to allow it to grow cold.

She assents to the suggestion, and when the rim of his cup touches his lips – the chip goes unfelt – his shoulders slump. It is the first thing that he has swallowed, other than spirits and affliction, in the past five days, and he wishes that he could taste it, damn this numbness. Rumpelstiltskin secretly loves Belle's tea. Despite the fact that he cannot fully enjoy the results of her efforts, simply the act of taking tea with his caretaker once again is enough to somewhat placate him.

"How bad was it?" she asks after a sip.

A glance out of the corner of his eye shows that she is simply staring into her cup. Ah yes, the questions. Straight to business, apparently. And that is enough to dissipate what good mood her tea bestowed upon him.

"How bad was what?" he inquires, because despite the fact that he knows exactly what she means, truly she could be referring to a number of things; and he is not going to give up the right answers if she will not ask the right questions.

Belle visibly tenses, stares ahead for a moment, and then sets down her cup on the table with purpose. "You know," she says, smoothing out her skirt, "I am trying to be civil." She takes a step in his direction, and there is that rage again, spiking suddenly; instinctively he takes one step backward, only to find that he is already against the table. "But I am angry with you, Rumpelstiltskin, very angry," she says, tone so cordial, with a smile lingering on her lips. He knows false smiles, has perfected his own, and he knows when pleasantness in a voice is meant to carry a warning. Despite his caretaker's grievances, she has clearly spent too much time in his presence. She reaches toward him, past the cup he holds up as a poor defense, and straightens the collar of his waistcoat. Rumpelstiltskin holds his breath. While mere proximity has been tested with positive results, contact is another matter entirely. So preoccupied is he in trying to gauge even the tiniest response to those hands, he stops listening to her pleasantly hostile voice. He feels a subtle shifting within his mind, like when a creature's sleep is disturbed and it begins to stir, then sniffs the air and rolls over, drifting back into slumber.

Success. A brilliant success.

She jerks a bit harder than necessary on the leather, snapping his attention back to her. "And if you continue to play coy, well…I don't know," she jerks again, "what I'm liable to do." Her hands linger, gently gripping the perfectly straightened collar, and he leans back just a fraction. Never before has Belle been so bold, in her words or her touches. She is the one who looks away when caught staring, the one who blushes, whose innocence weaves across her skin like delicate lace, and this change in her demeanor makes his mouth go dry. She releases his waistcoat and slides her hands down to rest against his chest, and she drums her fingers over his racing heart. He does not know whether or not he is relieved that he cannot feel her hands upon him.

"Playing coy, you say?" he chokes out, congratulating himself in that his voice does not break.

She nods her head.

"Perish the thought."

Her smile is not quite so hostile anymore, not quite so much like a wolf baring its teeth when she says, "Now, I suppose I should be a bit more specific." She leans toward him, so close, so close, face and lips so close, and whispers, "My condition," gripping his shoulders, "exactly how bad was it?"

Rumpelstiltskin looks down and away from her eyes, features tight, and sees her waist ghosting against his. Oh, if she only knew how lucky she is that he cannot feel her touches, that her innocence is not so heady, that fire is not shooting down his limbs and through his chest, because he would be upon her in a moment, and he would not be gentle, and he would not give a lick for her screaming and thrashing, and he would bend her over the table and take her like a common scullery maid.

When she rests her forehead against his, periwinkle eyes staring so unabashedly, fingers surely trailing somewhere that he cannot see, and presses herself closer to him so that he can tell it is intentional as the pressure only just registers, he clutches his cup, his useless cup, so hard that he fears he may break the piece of crockery.

"Tell me," she demands. There will be no escaping the right questions, or her for that matter, and he can feel the magic entwined in their deal trying to force the answer from his mouth. Not that it is strong enough to actually pull the information out against his will (only the knife could compel him), but if he ignores his end of the deal, she will go about brandishing blades again and that sort of situation is one he would really prefer to avoid – besides, the sensation of aggravated magic humming about his person is annoying. He can feel almost nothing, but that cuts through the haze and into his senses with ease.

A casual rotation of the wrist and a flippant tone make the words, "Oh, you were fine, other than knocking on Death's door," sound more unconcerned than planned.

Her response is nothing quite as dramatic as a gasp and a hand pressed to her forehead in a fit of swooning, but her eyes widen, her face pales, and she abruptly releases him. He sags with relief, letting out a breath. Even without her purity on her side as a weapon, she still manages to make his head spin.

The change is nearly instantaneous. Gone is the aggressive siren, replaced with the demure Belle he knows. Her hands fidget awkwardly, and she lowers her eyes to the floor. She obviously was not expecting the answer he gave. That, or the very idea had been flitting through her mind, and his affirmation of such suspicions frightens her. Probably the latter, he thinks.

"What was it, exactly?" A pause, then, "The thing that made me ill," she adds for clarification, eyes narrowed. His Belle catches on quickly.

"A curse, meant to punish those after my property." That answer flows much more easily than the first, and the magic calms, no longer buzzing with ire. Best to just cooperate.

Belle lowers herself onto the table and picks up her cup once more. "But what was it? A burning curse? A shrieking curse?" She pauses, glances at him sidelong. "A killing curse?" she ventures, voice low.

"Oh, no curse in particular. I simply infused it with my magic." Her guesses are interesting though. The old man never had a chance to regale him with the curse's internal effects, and Rumpelstiltskin had simply been satisfied that it killed him. He knew it burned, that much was obvious from the way Belle carried on about it, but shrieking? Curious.

She snorts. "Obviously. I doubt you would use someone else's magic." It amuses him just how far off the mark her appraisal of his character is, considering he would love (almost) nothing more than to get his hands on Her Majesty's power and dangle it in front of her face, conjuring up illusions of a true love lost until she is reduced to nothing more than a blubbering fool. Women are so easily injured by their own emotions.

Such as Milah, dead by her own wandering heart. Such as Regina, consumed by hatred for a child with a loose tongue. Such as Belle, unable to dwell without companionship.

"No, I literally cursed it with my magic. The essence of the power that makes me, well, me, was running through you."

"But it was so…dark." She shivers.

At this, he cannot help but raise a brow in amusement. "Have you forgotten who I am, dearie? I'm the Dark One. It's right there in the title."

"Right," she murmurs, a slight blush of embarrassment glowing beneath her eyes. Apparently, she had forgotten, or at least did not draw the connection. Well, that certainly is interesting.

Her fingernails tap against her cup, betraying a nervousness of which he does not believe she is justified. After all, she is not the one being questioned. She is not the one who was nearly assaulted. "What, er, what exactly happened last night?" she finally asks, fingertips pressed into the rim of her cup, china digging into her white flesh.

Rumpelstiltskin nearly chokes on his tea as images spring to mind, of her flushed face and heaving bosom, and he is thankful for the scales that fail to display the same incriminating ruddiness.

He chooses his words carefully. "You were in a state of severe hypothermia, so I did what was required to save your life." What he says is the truth. The fact that he jumbles up the truth, throwing in a bit of omission, is not lying. "I…apologize for not receiving your consent for such course of action, but you were feverish, raving, violent I might add," he explains, fingers wagging and pitch growing a bit more grandiosewith each word. She casts a sidelong look at him, brow raised, and he lowers his hand. "I needed to take action, so I did. You objected though, which is understandable. You were prone to vivid hallucinations during your indisposition and seemed to think me some sort of demon."

~o~o~o~

Feverish. Vivid hallucinations. Belle wonders if the images she recalls are nothing more than the product of an addled mind. By "course of action," she assumes that he is referring to holding her, in order to warm her body. It is entirely plausible that her mind took that action to a further degree, that her fantasies were projected into a false reality. And the scales she discovered, are those the result of an attack she initiated while under the impression that he was a creature bent on bringing her harm? She does recall, barely, a vague fear of those flashes of scales, mixed with the uncertainty of shifting shadows, and her memory is, admittedly, hazy.

"Did I hurt you?" she asks.

He actually laughs at that, a deep, throaty chuckle that shakes his entire frame. It is the kind of laughter that, well, she has never heard from him before. Usually high twitters and cackling echo at her misfortunes, but this carries nothing of his customary falsetto.

"You give yourself too much credit, dearie," he says, amusement ringing his words. An affronted glare checks his laughter, and he coughs into his hand. "A few scratches, nothing more."

That confirms it. She sighs into her cup, feeling rather foolish. To believe that she would have the courage to make so bold a move, to kiss the Dark One, as he has so kindly reminded her, and that he would return her affections, well…she must have been hallucinating. But her attitude only moments ago gives her pause for thought. She has no idea what came over her, what propelled her to act in such a way, only that it left her lightheaded with a tight coiling sensation in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps she is still afflicted. She subtly feels her forehead, but there is only the subtle warmth of a blush against the backs of her knuckles.

"Nonetheless, your concern is appreciated," he says

At that, she looks up at him, and she can see the sincerity in the lines of his face. But there is something else amid the sincerity. There is weariness, so strong, that she has never before seen in her employer. It reminds her of her father, how he looked when she last saw him, burdened by war, exhausted both mentally and physically.

She misses her father, so much. However, that is a topic for another day.

"Are you alright?" she asks, setting down her cup.

"No," he says, though he looks like he wants to say something else, if the way his mouth twists is any indication. This whole honesty thing must be strange territory for him. He never lies, but this is more the sort of open, straightforward honesty, the kind that does not allow for subterfuge, which she believes he has not utilized much, if at all. "Just…tired," he adds, though she has a feeling that it is more than that. She has a feelings that is has to do with the fact that his breath is not laced with alcohol, but so cold that it chilled her cheeks. And now that she is paying attention she can see that the luster of his scales has dimmed, their lovely color paled a touch.

"Why?"

"Because Death does not appreciate being cheated," he snaps. His patience for questioning has run out, it seems. Really, she is surprised he has been such a good sport this long; not that he would have refused to answer her questions – they did make a deal, after all – but he could have been nasty about the whole situation, and he could have been much more resistant to her earlier treatment of him. It cannot be often that he finds himself on the receiving end of an interrogation. He must feel a bit like poor Jack now, strangulation aside. "Now, I happen to be paying the price for your soul. Be grateful."

Well, now she feels downright guilty.

She glances down to see a tremor run down one of his legs, then the other. The stupid man can hardly stand, and here she was harassing him and practically throwing herself at him. At once, her hand is at his elbow, fingers curling into his shirt. Wordlessly, she guides him over to his chair beside the hearth. Surprisingly, he does not resist in the slightest as Belle, pulling down on his arm and nudging a knee against his leg, gently lowers him into the chair.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" she asks. Her master is obviously out of sorts, severely. As his servant, it is her duty to provide him with comfort. As someone who cares for him, it is her desire to see him better as soon as possible. For him to be in such a state, barely able to stand, such a contrast from the nimble man she knows, is strange, worrying even.

"You can sit down and let me rest."

Obediently, she settles herself on the floor beside the chair, legs tucked beneath her skirt and hands folded in her lap.

"If you hadn't tried to die on me, this," he lazily gestures to himself, "wouldn't have happened."

"If you hadn't cursed that knife, I wouldn't have been ill." For all the harm it caused him, he treated her of his own volition. It is not as though she asked him to do it, though she is certainly glad he did. Still, he should not blame her when the urge to complete acts of kindness rears its metaphorical head.

"Well, you shouldn't have been in the west wing." His tone is reprimanding, and she bristles in response. However, she knows that she was in the wrong, not only for breaking one of his most important rules, but for invading his privacy, snooping amongst his belongings, ones she knows were guarded with charms of some sort. She may have been able to get past them, the reason for which she cannot comprehend, but it does not excuse her behavior. Curiosity does not justify rule breaking and privacy invading, but a small amount of defiance continues to swell in her breast.

"Well, you shouldn't have been avoiding me," she says.

Rumpelstiltskin only stares into the fire, mouth a thin line, a fist clenched on the armrest. Silence envelopes the room, awkward and stifling. They could continue to play this game of blaming one another, but it is one that neither can truly win, and it is one that will get them nowhere. Because he says nothing in response, she assumes that the victory is hers. However, it is a hollow victory, and she feels as though it is undeserved. Despite her arguments, Belle believes that they are both at fault, and no progress can be made if they continue to be so stubborn. She bows (not literally) and allows the victory to pass to Rumpelstiltskin.

"By the way," she begins, "I am…grateful, that is." She is, truly. Rumpelstiltskin may have been an utter pain this past month, and if it was not for his behavior she probably would never have gotten cursed, but the fact that he saved her, that he stayed by her side through the entire ordeal and did not give up on her, well, that makes up for things a bit. She rests her hand on his arm, though he does not react at all, not even flinch the way he previously would. "Thank you, for saving my life," she whispers.

She is still a bit sore at him, but she has never been one to hold a grudge for very long. And even if she was, she does not think she could hold one against him, especially for a charge like his. He has never laid a hand on her, never been malicious toward her – well, more than is normal for him – and well, loneliness aside, he has been good to her.

~o~o~o~

To receive such gratitude makes Rumpelstiltskin smile. It is not one of malice or mockery, but rather the type that only Belle is able to extract from him. This is not forced gratitude, meant to mask poorly-concealed disgust, given to a deal-maker, whose services are bought with trinkets, tears, favors and flesh. Hers is true, warm, and given freely.

Rumpelstiltskin is so glad that he did not allow her to die. It is the first time he has ever thought such a thing about a person.

"You're welcome," he says, turning to look at her. When he spies her hand upon his arm, he nearly jerks away out of reflex; apparently, the only touches he shall notice are those that will render him breathless. Even so, he has her again, safe and well, and that will have to be enough. It is all he can afford.

"I have one more question," she says, twisting her fingers about one another, fisting her dress repeatedly.

"Go ahead, dearie." Her fidgeting makes his mouth go dry, and he swallows around a lump in his throat. For something to have her so agitated, so nervous, it can be nothing good.

"Did I do something wrong? I mean, I-I thought that we were getting along well, that maybe we were…oh, I don't know what I thought." Rumpelstiltskin imagines that she will soon wear a hole in her dress if she continues to worry the material in such a manner.

He could tell her. He could explain the situation, of how he could no longer stand to be in her presence without wanting to itch so hard as to pry off his scales, that even the slightest touch was unbearable. Because of what he is, he wants to take the bright innocence she possesses and corrupt it just as he has managed to do so with every blushing maiden desperate enough to deal with him. Well, perhaps he would leave that last bit out. No need to tarnish her view of him any further. He could tell her that his behavior has, more than anything, been a means of protecting her.

A lot of good it did her in the end; and while intent should matter, it rarely ever does.

She sighs. "Regardless of what I thought, I fear as though either I was horribly mistaken or I've managed to ruin —"

"You've done nothing wrong, dearie. Trust me, if I took issue with something you'd done, I'd let you know."

"Then why've you been avoiding me?" So much for one more question.

"Personal matters, nothing more. And I'd like to leave it at that, if you please." He feels like kicking himself when she winces at the sharpness of his tone.

Just like that, the confession is retracted into that place of the mind where unsaid thoughts go, enclosed in shadow, never to emerge again. Honesty has never been his best feature, especially when it has not been demanded of him. And this is a confession for which the right question has not been asked. He hopes that she will leave the matter alone, for if she continues to pry, she will eventually ask the right question.

She nods her head, accepting his response as the truth (because he can say nothing else) but obviously wishing for something different. "Well, I-I'm satisfied with your answers. I'll leave you now." She straightens her skirt and moves to stand, but his hand loosely clutching hers seemingly of its own accord forces her to stop.

"Are you quite certain? No other queries flitting about in your head?"

"No, nothing important."

"Something…unimportant, then?"

Her head tilts to the side, eyes lifted to the ceiling in thought. "Perhaps. You tell me if it is. Will you be present at supper tonight?"

There used to be no inquiries of that sort, of inquiring about what had become habit quite some time ago. She would prepare supper, and he would attend, no questions asked. Now, routine has been broken, and what should be certainties are not. He spirited her away from the life she knew, and just as she became accustomed (dare he say comfortable?) to one with him, he managed to go and botch everything. In trying to protect Belle, he has ended up wounding her. To reduce such a calm, patient woman to screaming and taking hostages, that was never his intention.

Upon his return to the Dark Castle, when the darkness first began its work on her and she was still lucid, the first thing she said to him was I've missed you, and she begged him not to leave her side. He starved her of company, condemning her to a loneliness with which he has been familiar for so long. He took from her, as she said, the last person she had in the entire world, and he knows exactly what the magnitude of that sort of loss feels like.

And then, an odd realization overcomes him. This was why he feared losing her to his magic. Belle, at some point, became his last person, too. Oh, Regina is fine competition, and his connections, such as the hatter, are sometimes good for conversation, but Belle is…she is the one person who sees him as more than the Dark One, more than the deal-making, child-stealing Rumpelstiltskin. No person has ever sought out his company; the very idea is strange. No person has ever approached him without a deal in mind, said his name without scorn or fear, treated him as something more than a means to obtain their desires. No person except Belle. And he threw her kindness away in lieu of loneliness. It is one of the most stupid things he has ever done.

"Hmm, you're right," he says. "Certainly unimportant. Yet, a question is a question, and it must be answered. However, not now."

Her jaw goes slack for a moment, obviously shocked by his answer. "But I've chores —"

"Which can be finished later."

"But —"

Swiftly, he leans over the arm of the chair and presses a finger to her lips, silencing her more effectively than if he had sewn them together with magic. "Later."

No more loneliness. He is not yet ready to release her from his sight. A fear that he will never see her again consumes him, that she will disappear into the dark corridors of the castle, swallowed by shadows creeping out from crevices and corners, that she will disappear without leaving a trace, as though absorbed into the very walls.

It is a strange, illogical fear, he knows, but it is there just the same.

She nods her head in acceptance and settles herself beside the chair once more, ducking her head beneath his arm and leaning it against the armrest. For a while, neither one moves, neither speaks. This silence is not stifling, but rather the comfortable sort that once filled the spaces between offhand remarks made during midday tea.

"Do you mind if I read?" she asks after a bit.

He loves it when Belle reads, for it is during that activity that she is happiest. Just as he is most in his element when making deals, so is she when engrossed in a book. While reading, she exhibits the most extraordinary range of emotions, from loud laughter and bright smiles to huffs of anger and unhappy sniffles. In one instance, he had been shaken from a very delicate experiment by the most heart-wrenching cries he had ever heard, and that is saying something. Fearing that Belle had been severely injured, he went in search of her, nearly tripping on her at the bottom of the staircase, where she sat hunched over, sobbing, shoulders shaking, a book in her lap. Stupefied at the sight before him, he knelt down in front of her, placed a tentative hand on her shoulder (dealing with crying women has never been a particularly comfortable situation for him), and asked her what was wrong.

She looked up at him, with tears running down her splotchy face, and wailed, "Henry's dead, and…and now Cecilia has to raise their baby all on…on her own, and it isn't fair at all be-because he went through so much to rescue her from the pirates, and he…he was a good man!" And here she crumpled into his lap, hiccupping and clutching his lapels like the entire world was crashing around them, while he could do nothing but awkwardly pat her back and hum a little tune that usually worked on shrieking babes. Unfortunately, he learned that it does not work on crying housekeepers, and he was reduced to saying things like, "I'm sure she'll be fine," and, "He rescued her, that's the important thing."

When she finally calmed down and lifted her head, she gave him a little smile, tears still trickling down her cheeks, apologized for wetting his waistcoat, and said, "You're right. He saved his true love. That's what's important," voice congested. To think that talking fiction at her actually worked is…so very Belle.

The tears he is not quite so fond of, but the smiles…he loves her smiles, from tiny quirks of the mouth, to full beams, to wry smiles reserved for bittersweet endings, to private grins accompanied by a scarlet coloring of the cheeks. The last are his favorite.

He imagines that it is an escape for her, first an escape from a tedious life surrounded by nobles (he finds them to be an extremely dull lot), and now an escape from a tedious life in the prison in which she resides. At some point, she may have stopped seeing it as such a dreadful place to be, but leaving her isolated for so long can only have served to reverse that progress. He has been a cruel jailer as of late, he realizes, and now it is time to start making up for his blunders.

Before he can stop himself, before he even considers the consequences, the novel he last spied her reading is in his hands, violet smoke wafting in the air. A throb of pain in his chest, resonating through his entire body, forces a low groan from him, which brings those periwinkle eyes snapping up to his face. The discomfort is shortly absorbed into the numbness.

"You shouldn't strain yourself," she scolds. And there it is, the caretaker looking after him that he has dearly missed. To think, he, Rumpelstiltskin, not only tolerating, but yearning for the stern yet caring words of a housekeeper. But she is more than a mere housekeeper. She is more than a pawn. She is a queen wearing a servant's frock, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Beautiful, dangerous, wielding the power to make the Dark One complete sacrifices in her name.

"I'd much less prefer accompanying you to fetch it on foot." But he will not answer her question yet, will not let her go, despite the annoyed magic buzzing about him once again.

The novel passes from his hand to hers, this time without a lingering touch. There is no discomfort, but at the same time there is no pleasure to be gained, for he barely perceives the feeling of her fingers brushing his. He still wants her, of course, but now his desires are only those of a man, no longer tinged by those of the Dark One. He can still feel it, at the back of his mind, but it is as though resting within the shadows, a peculiar feeling. She opens the book and lowers her eyes to the page, scanning the text in silence.

The fire dancing in the hearth emits no warmth. Not that he is surprised, but still…a bit of warmth would have been nice amidst the coldness taking residence within him. Honestly, this drawback to which he is exposing himself has cut his patience further than usual. After he worked to eradicate the darkness from Belle's body, sacrificing his own strength, he still gives up the mere ability to feel for her. Is that strange, he wonders, to be willing to give up something for a person for whom one cares, to give perhaps a great deal more than necessary?

These thoughts bother him, serving to only increase his irritation, so he pushes them away and sinks deeper into his weariness. A sigh escapes his lips as he slouches in the chair. Let her see him in his weakened state, for he has not the stamina to maintain this façade any longer. If any were to judge him at this moment, she would be the last, he feels.

"Would you…read aloud?" he asks. It is a question that he has never before asked her, a desire he has never dared voice until now.

Her answer is a smile that crinkles her eyes and lights up her features more than the fire does. It is a smile that makes this numbness worth it. And he thinks that it is not strange at all, to make this temporary sacrifice of his strength for Belle, this loss of feeling.

What is strange is the thought that now…he does not know what he would not do for her.


Hope you enjoyed :)

And I just couldn't resist putting in that little nod to the Disney film.

Oh, and Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!