10
The Enemy Within
Belle found it difficult to sleep that night, without the comforting warmth of her husband beside her. She was use to cuddling up close beside him and having his arm snuggling her, or hearing his soft breathing in her ear, or laying her head on his chest to listen to his heart thumping in a soothing rhythm. She missed running her fingers through his floofy silky hair and whispering sweet endearments in his ear. She even missed how sometimes he hogged the pillow and snatched all the covers to him because he was cold, though most times they ended up entwined about each other so the covers were either beneath them or over them like a cocoon.
Now that he was absent from her side, though only a room or two away, like the past two months when he was on Neverland, she found her body was restless and unable to settle. She tossed and turned, unable to find a comfortable spot. First the bed was too cold, then it was too hot and she threw off the comforter, only to be shivering ten minutes later, and dragging it up to her chin, yet still unable to get warm. She waited to hear his familiar hushed breathing in her ear and his hand caressing her, her body crying out in longing for him like an addict craving his drug of choice.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she crawled out of bed and padded down the hall to the main room, where she found her husband asleep on the couch, the blanket wrapped about him, the chalk line he'd erected gleaming in the banked glow of the fire. He looked so innocent asleep, she thought, and just remained staring at him for several long moments, wishing she dared cross the line and kiss him, just once, on his perfect lips.
But she didn't dare.
She understood why he had done what he had, and though she disliked it intensely, realized that it was his way of taking control of his demons, in almost the only way he could. And that control was important, especially to someone who had been a prisoner and tortured the way he had. For two months his life had been beyond his control, and now that he had regained his freedom of choice, she had to let him exercise it—even when his choices made her upset and sad.
My wounded warrior. One day, you shall be whole again. Not perfect, but mended. And that will be enough and more than enough for me.
She smiled lovingly at him, then she made her way back to her solitary bed on cat's feet. Curling up in the center of it, she did some deep breathing and meditation exercises and soon grew weary enough to lie down and sleep—until the sound of her daughter yelling woke her.
"Papa! It's moorning ti-i-me!"
Abby stood just behind the chalk line around the couch, her bare toes almost touching it, clad only in her pink nightie, her flyaway brown hair, so like Rumple's, straggling down her back in a mare's nest of snarls, bellowing like she was a drill sergeant on the parade ground.
Belle buried her head in the pillow, thinking oh, she's your daughter, all right, Captain Gold!
In the living room, Rumple groaned and shoved his head under his pillow, trying to avoid the banshee that had invaded his well-earned rest. Maybe if he ignored the little minx she would go away.
"Papa! Time to rise and shine!"
No such luck.
Rumple stuck part of his head out from beneath the pillow and opened an eye. "Abby, dearie, go wake up Mama."
But his little sprite shook her head firmly. "Noo! Wake you first!"
"With your bellowing you could wake a deaf person from the dead!" he grumbled, reluctantly sitting up. His hair was sticking out in all directions.
Abby hesitated, then crowed, "Get outta bed, you sleepyhead! 'Fore I make you drop n' gimme twenty!"
Rumple lost it then, for her tone was almost an exact imitation of his own when he was teaching new recruits. He laughed so hard he almost fell off the couch. "C'mere, Sergeant Sprite!" He held out his arms and Abby bounded over the line and into them. He swung her up into the air and cried, "Oh no! The big bad Mr. Nibbles is gonna eat your nose!"
Then he pretended to bite the child's nose.
"No! Not my nose!" Abby squealed.
"First your nose, then your ears, then your neck . . .nibble, nibble, nibble," Rumple "nibbled" his way down her, making the little girl shriek with laughter, for she was ticklish and his love bites tickled deliciously. "All the way down to your toes!"
Soon the house rang with merry giggles, and Belle climbed out of bed and came down the hall just in time to see her husband playing with their daughter, both of them wearing identical grins and giggling like inmates from an insane asylum.
Belle leaned on the door frame, watching, and thought how Abby truly lived up to her name—making Rumple forget the shadows that lingered in his psyche and just be a playful loving parent again. The way he had been before being a captive on Neverland.
That's it, Abby. Make him remember, sprite, how it used to be, and chase away the grim beasts and shadows.
Perhaps, the Mind Healer thought, her daughter could do what all of the sessions in the world could not, show Rumplestiltskin that he was loved more than anything, and always would be.
You'll always be her hero, Rumple. His wife chuckled as her little imp of daughter attempted to tickle Rumple back.
"Tickle, tickle!" Abby squealed, her little hands sneaking to tickle the backs of Rumple's knees, as he had them propped up on the couch with Abby leaning against them.
"Hey!" he yelped, then started giggling again. "Sneak attack, sergeant?"
He scooped his daughter up and kissed her cheeks. "Okay, sprite, enough! We'll play some more later."
"Awright. Need to go potty!" she sang and scrambled off him.
"Ooof!" he grunted as her foot stepped right on his stomach and her other one on his injured leg. "And I'm gonna need a Healer!"
He swung his legs down as Abby scurried off to the bathroom, and saw Belle. "Hey. Did we wake you?"
"I like to wake up to you laughing, Rumple," she told him honestly. Then she crossed the line and ran her fingers through his hair. "Your hair's all floofy, Captain."
"Uniform of the day, Lieutenant," he smirked, his eyes dancing. That was an old joke between them and it went all the way back to before they were dating, when she had accidentally surprised him taking a bath in a stream on campaign.
"Is that a suggestion?" she teased back, her hands drifting to the buttons on his nightshirt.
"What are you suggesting, dearie?" he queried naughtily.
She flipped open a button. "Something quite . . .non-regulation, Captain," she purred, her blue eyes heating up. "After our sprite is in bed."
"I'll put it on my to-do list."
"Rumple!" she mock-growled and pretended to cuff him across the head.
"Hey, sweetheart! Watch it! You're messing with my hair!"
"Floof can stand messing with," she retorted, and then deliberately ran her hands through it and made it stand up until it flopped over into his eyes.
"I think you should have been a hair stylist instead of a Mind Healer, the way you play with my hair," her husband snickered.
"Your hair is irresistible," she told him, then she leaned over and kissed him.
They nearly forgot they weren't alone, until Abby cried, "Mama kiss Papa!"
"I forgot we had an audience," Belle whispered guiltily as she drew away.
"In awhile, dearie," he crooned. He stood up, and the small empty vial of sleeping draught fell onto the floor.
He bent to pick it up, but Belle saw and said, "Rumple, too much of that is not a good thing."
"I know, but . . . I didn't want to have any more nightmares last night."
"You could have woken me up."
He glanced away, and she knew that was because he hadn't wished to, he had wanted as much as he could to handle it himself.
She had learned a long time ago that her husband, being the damaged individual he was, not only because of this imprisonment on Neverland, but also what his father had done to him as a child, was someone who could not trust easily. His father has destroyed his trust early on, and Belle had worked like a dervish to repair at least some of that damage, but she was wise enough to know that it wasn't possible to repair it all, and Rumple would always have problems with trusting anyone with his weaknesses.
Even herself.
But that was all right. One of a Mind Healer's maxims was heal what can be healed, but let the rest go.
Another one was the mind holds many secrets, and some secrets are mysteries that will never be uncovered.
Meaning that sometimes a patient must be allowed to keep their secrets and privacy and utter honesty was not something to be forced upon someone ever, not even for "their own good." The mind knew what a person could handle, and it was not up to the Mind Healer to determine what secrets should or should not be revealed, but to take what the person was willing to give and work with it. Sometimes some very damaged individuals had secrets they could not face, or wished to share, and all patients were entitled to their privacy, and forcing an issue could often hurt them further, and went against the Mind Healer codes.
Thus Belle did not press Rumple to reveal why he had wanted to take the dreamless sleep potion, allowing him to choose whether or not he wanted to reveal his nightmare. Though required to have sessions with her, he could choose the time and place, and also what would be discussed. Belle had learned long before that her husband was a complex man, and she loved him for it.
She touched his shoulder lightly. "If you need to talk, I'm here. Always."
He just nodded quickly.
He was like an injured animal, wary and unwilling to come close, but she had extended her hand, and if he wished to take what she offered, he could do so, she knew the virtue of patience, and to give him the freedom to make his own choices.
"Mama, I hungry!" Abby called, trying to climb up into her chair at the kitchen table.
Belle gave her husband a tender smile and went to make breakfast, while Rumple shaved and tamed his floofy hair somewhat.
Belle went to get the eggs and milk from the porch, thinking about paying a call on Regina that day, and she was distracted thinking about that, so she didn't notice that Henry's scarf had been dropped on the ground.
She shut the back door, her mind on making omelets for breakfast and so missed the striped red and white scarf lying like a discarded flag in the mud.
Page~*~*~*~Break
In the twins' house, next door, Peaceful raised her graying head from the floor and barked warningly.
Bae looked up from the canvas he was painting and said, "Hush, old girl. I just took you out." Then he became alarmed and said, "All right, you can go out again if you have to." The sheepdog was old now and having some issues with bladder control and the last thing he wanted was to clean up a puddle on the floor. She had been his and Robin's dog since they were little kids, Rumple had brought her home from a campaign one day after finding her starving and eating trash by his tent, a skinny scrawny puppy with worms and half-frozen from cold. But like many a rescued dog, Peaceful had turned out to be a wonderful companion, protective and loving.
Bae made a smooching noise to encourage the dog, who was going deaf, and tapped the floor, since the animal could still feel vibrations. "Peaceful! Wanna go out?"
The sheepdog whined and levered herself to her feet, then made her way out of the open door held for her into the yard.
Bae returned to his canvas, it was a surprise for Rumple, a drawing he'd done of his papa with all three of his children and Peaceful surrounding his captain father, and underneath it were the words—Captain Rumple Gold—papa and hero.
He hoped this would remind his papa that no matter what had gone on at Skull Rock, he would always be a hero to his children, and an example to all on how a true officer of a mage company behaved when made a prisoner of war.
He heard Peaceful scratching on the door, and went to let her in, finding the dog now held a striped scarf in her mouth.
"Hey, where'd you get this?" Bae chuckled. He took the scarf from the dog. "Looks familiar," he muttered, then he put the scarf aside to show Robin later and went back to his painting, while the old dog curled up on the hearth rug and slept, unable to tell her master that another person besides Henry had been in the vicinity of the Gold properties that morning, a person whose scent was intermingled with that of a crow.
Page~*~*~*~*~Break
Regina Mills couldn't remember a time when she had felt this awful, not even when she was first pregnant with Henry. She was almost never sick, and when she was she usually could fight through it with her iron will, and had never missed a day of work because of an illness.
Until now.
This pregnancy sapped her strength and made her disgustingly weak and tired, to the point where she needed to sleep almost all day, and caused her to throw up nearly everything except tea, dry toast, chicken broth, and water.
The Healers had put her on medical leave because her condition was interfering with her ability to perform her duty as captain of the Queens and now her second, Mulan, would have to take over. Regina hated being so captive to her own body. Even though she loved the fact she was carrying a new life, and hopefully the girl she and Dan longed for, she wished wholeheartedly there was a spell to speed up pregnancy.
Daniel had left her with a pitcher of ice water with lemon, some chicken broth with herbs in a bowl, and a piece of toast. Currently she was lying in bed, trying to read a book Belle had brought her, and wondering when Henry was going to get back from doing his chores over at the Gold residences and the Dubois and others so he could keep her company.
She drank some water and broth and nibbled on a corner of her toast, dozing lightly and then waking to go use the latrine down the hall. As she was coming out she decided to go down to the kitchen to see if Henry was back and had eaten the plate of food Daniel had left for him.
To her surprise she found the food was untouched and had started to grow cold upon the table. When she looked at the clock on the shelf, she saw it was quarter past eight and Henry woke up at 6 and was gone by 6:30 and should have been back way before now.
She pressed a hand to her heart, panicking.
With the increased security measures because of Zelena, she had been sure no harm would come to her first born here in the barracks. But if that were so, then why was he so late returning from his routine chores?
Frantic, she grabbed her handheld magic mirror off the shelf and spoke into it. "Show me Henry Mills!"
The mirror glowed and swirled . . .and then remained blank.
Regina shook it. Then she repeated her command. "Show me Henry Mills!"
Again she felt the mirror's magic seek her son—and then come up against something, a barrier, that prevented it from doing as she commanded.
Her heart went cold in her chest.
That could mean only one thing. Henry was being held prisoner by someone who could block mirror seeking magic.
She only knew of one person who would want to harm her or her son.
Zelena.
She has my son. She has my son! Regna put a hand to her stomach, her heart thumping crazily in her chest.
What can I do?
She was terrified, imagining all kinds of things Zelena could do to her little boy, and knowing her sister, she wouldn't hesitate to do whatever she could to harm him, and therefore harm her sister, whom she'd always resented.
An instant later her training took over and she felt the fog of terror clear. She must think. And then she had to act. She used the mirror to call Daniel. Then she called Central Command and put out an alert for a missing child, kidnapped, suspect at large.
Rumple was up to his elbows in hot soapy water as he washed dishes when he felt the tingle of a mirror summoning shoot through him.
"One minute!" he sighed, and said, "Someone's calling me on my mirror," to Belle as he pulled his arms out of the water and dried them off with a dishcloth.
"Go ahead, I'll finish here."
Rumple limped into the office where his mirror was locked in his drawer, and unlocked it with a brief word. Then he took it out. "Captain Gold here. Report."
He assumed it was one of his company trying to get in touch with him, but as soon as Regina's face appeared in the mirror he knew it was an emergency.
"Rumple, I need your help."
"What's happened, dearie?"
"Henry's gone missing. And I think you know who has him."
Rumple's eyes darkened. "Zelena. But how did she get past our wards?"
"I don't know. She shouldn't have been able to. Unless . . ."
"Unless she was already inside them when they went up," he finished. "In another form."
"Yes. She's been known to take the shape of a crow," murmured Regina. She told Rumple all the details she knew about Henry's disappearance. "Daniel's out scouring the forest with his brigade, but I know you and your sons are the best there are when it comes to track and find, Rumple."
"We'll find him, dearie. I'll tell Bae and Robin and we'll come over. You just relax until we come there. Too much stress isn't good for the baby. Gold out."
He set the mirror down and then went to tell Belle what had happened. Then he vowed by the horns of Cernunnos the Forest Lord to make that green witch pay for what she had done, though he had no idea that she had been a party to far more than just a kidnapping.