A/n Many thanks again to dear lizzietothet who saves English from my torturing hands and makes a decent fiction pie out of my awkward word cookery.
And thank you very much to all the readers, who leave comments! They are amazingly appreciated!
"Where are we going?" Belle asked, already halfway to the destination, like she usually did.
The three of them strode on a summer morning on a narrow country road, with tall, overgrown grass at the sides. The air was full of the scent of hay, earth and buzzing bees. The cows were mooing and grazing in the meadows. Summer was in full swing. The sun had not risen high enough to become a hellish fire so it was easy and pleasant to walk along the road, even with a cart filled with goods up to a brim. Today was market day. Bae went skipping ahead in a fine linen tunic, breeches and a pretty ugly straw hat, but he loved it passionately. His father had taught them to weave straw, so they, and Belle, spent a whole evening weaving this hat. Rumpelstiltskin was pushing the cart, in the same vest with a belt and a summer shirt, which could be undone at the throat and let the breeze blow over his skin. Belle chose her outfit herself today diving into the chest of things belonging to her predecessor, with pleasure. She had put on her shirt with its sleeves rolled up, a gray cotton floor-length skirt and red corsage made of thick fabric, with black lacing in the front, emphasizing her perfect physique and making it look more of a slender figure than an emaciated one.
"We're going to the town, Belle!" Bae caught up with the girl. "We'll sell wool and goat cheese and will earn a lot of money today! Maybe we'll buy a sweet bun or even candy! Pa, please can we buy some candy? Well, for Belle, of course, not for me, I'm too big for that." The boy added proudly and a little embarrassed.
"Perhaps we will." Rumpelstiltskin agreed with a smile. Today was definitely a great day, and nothing could spoil it. In summer, wool was not being sold as well as in autumn and winter but there were vegetables and fruits that you can collect; mushrooms, berries and even fish, and it took much less firewood, and they had enough money consequently. Winters were a much darker time. He always loved summer. So surprising, he thought, that he had recently been walking out of town with Belle - a burden on his shoulders, a debt that he had to endure. Now he pushes the cart with joy together with his family.
Passing by the edge of the forest, where for one brief moment he was ready to leave her to the wolves, he averted his eyes from the girl and lowered his head, glad that she could not read minds, his weird Belle.
Bright sun lit the marketplace, reviving joy in the spinner. Cheese was sold out within the first hour of trading, and he had actually doubted the venture! When Belle began helping Bae in domestic affairs, he taught her how to make goat cheese - it was not difficult, but it required patience, time and skill. Soon their pantry overflowed with cheese so that Bae expressed the idea to put the surplus for sale, and he was absolutely right - with the help of only cheese money, what they had earned was enough to live on for a month. The girl came to add fragrant forest herbs to the cheese, and the product had become even more tasty, and most importantly - had a delicious, tart smell that attracted buyers to their tray.
Belle, thought Rumpelstiltskin, also made people pay attention to their goods. Hardly any of the townspeople would have recognized a crazy girl in this cute, laughing lady, preoccupied with every day troubles. All together with her hair pinned under the bonnet she had become totally unrecognizable.
The girl was standing next to him and counted change, never making a single mistake. Completely absorbed in her task she did not notice the people around her and wasn't scared, as far as he noticed.
Rumpelstiltskin decided to skip lunch break, and wait until everything was sold as there were very little skeins of wool left in the cart. He planned to buy his two helpers some delicacy, tamarinds, baked with spices or figs in honey. Although the solstice festival has not yet arrived, he wanted to please his beloved today.
"I want to ask something." Belle touched his elbow, attracting his attention.
"Yes?" Rumpelstiltskin turned to her, listening. It seemed as if no matter how better she got, she still could not speak freely and be the first to start a conversation.
"We have come here, where I lived. I want to go home." Belle looked at him with a strange longing in her eyes.
Rumpelstiltskin went cold inside. Did she really want to go back? Really, did she not want to live in his house with him and his son? He supposed that he could not give her a lot, but this life was certainly better than the one she had left in the windy dilapidated shack.
"Why ... home? Belle ... don't ..." he squeezed the brim of the trolley in order to maintain balance and pleadingly looked at the girl again, for the umpteenth time, not understanding her.
"Papa, when the lady wants to go somewhere, we have to accompany her" Bae shrugged and looked invitingly at his father, stretched out his hands toward Belle, who had already been walking toward a nearby alley. "Fine, whatever, then I'll go." The boy grinned and ran after the girl.
Rumpelstiltskin was taken aback for a moment, not knowing what to do, but then quickly swept the money from the counter into his purse and tucked cloth into the empty cart. He hurried after his son, hand in hand with his wife, who had already disappeared behind a turn, his staff knocking on the road stones.
He caught up with them when they were already in the barn, called "home" by mistake. Baelfire and Belle sat on the floor at an open drawer, which he had noticed in their first meeting. In the girl's hands there was a book. Rumpelstiltskin stood on the porch in indecision, and then came and sat next to two figures hunched over a box.
It was not what he expected to see, but in the end, he thought, it was logical. In the box there was a small oil-painted portrait of a man and a woman, the mother and father of the girl, he gathered. On the second portrait, slightly smaller one, Belle herself was depicted in coal, only years younger. The shoulders were as angular as they were now, Rumpelstiltskin pointed to himself, but her face was quite an adult one now, acute, without that baby fat present in the picture. Also there were several unfamiliar metal objects, including a helmet with gears and little sashes, and very strange asymmetrical glasses with convex lenses. Strewn on the bottom there were several buttons, a glove, some beads and laces.
"Childhood treasures" guessed Rumpelstiltskin. "What was left of her destroyed house and deceased family."
"Mom and Dad." Belle gladly gave him the picture. "Daddy's glasses. Tesgoll's helmet. Yuna's bead. Jamesina's mirror. Mom's glove." The girl passed him all her treasures, which he could barely keep pace to pick up, not letting them fall, and put in his lap.
"Home. It is necessary to take them home. My old house." She looked straight into his eyes, begging .
He almost laughed with relief.
"Of course, my girl, we'll take everything. So that's what kind of home you had meant ..."
He gathered all things in a big bag taken just in case and hung it over his shoulder. Raking burnt pieces of ribbons from the bottom of the box, he suddenly remembered something.
"Bae!" he almost shouted with excitement. "Bae, we have forgotten your gift!"
"What?" Bae had totally forgotten about that bartered rabbit too, the one that he swapped for the ribbon.
Rumpelstiltskin took the ribbon out of his waistcoat pocket. It still stayed there folded in laps, waiting for its moment. The boy beamed. How could he forget about his gift! After all he loved it more than everything, almost more than his knightly battles. Making gifts.
"Look, Belle, it's a present from Baelfire to you! Do you like it?"
The girl enthusiastically took the folded ribbon from his hands. Unwrapping and admiring the shimmering gold on thin expensive fabric, she laced it between her fingers and wrapped around the palm. She handed it back.
"Tie it?" She pulled back the cap, revealing wonderful shiny locks, wavy since they had cut them.
Rumpelstiltskin, considering her from all sides, decided to tie the ribbon as he had seen it on the wedding day on Martha, placed it a little above the forehead and tied at the back of the neck, opening her face but leaving free the entire thick mane of hair lie freely.
"Now let's go home!" The girl flashed a smile and jumped out of her former home, feeling her new hairstyle. Rumpelstiltskin decided not to remind her of the cap and let her hair, which he secretly admired, run wild.
"Bae, son," he beckoned the boy. "You and Belle can now go and buy yourselves some sweets. I'll wait for you at the cart." And he wrapped a few copper coins into the boy's palm – as much as he could afford after their today's revenue.
Bay jumped up, kissed him on his cheek and scurried away not feeling the earth beneath him.
One lame old spinner was happy as ever.
Rumpelstiltskin has long collected all their belongings, as well as Belle's treasures, and waited for the sweet tooth to finally appear.
"What's taking so long," he muttered, nervous. Finally, he rolled the cart to the edge of the road where it would not get in anyone's way, and went to look for the lost ones.
Yet far from reaching the shops that sold sweets, Rumpelstiltskin heard screams. With a sense of foreboding, he rushed forward into the alley.
The scene in front of him made him numb. Belle, bloody hell, his little Belle nestled to a wall of the house. She was sitting on the ground, hugging her knees and covering her face with her hands, a posture, rehearsed for years. The dress was all in dust, all in someone's dirty footprints, and her hands, covering her head, were covered with blood.
"Dressed up, you nutter?" Screaming teenagers gathered around her. "Where have you stolen it, thief?" Another stone hit her on the shoulder.
She flinched.
"Where did you get it?" A fist with crumpled gold ribbon rose up. "It smells now you've warn it!"
The ribbon flew towards Belle. She grabbed it and pressed it to her chest, gold fabric instantly soaked with blood.
Numbness fell from Rumpelstiltskin. He rushed forward, relentlessly pushing the onlookers, and fell in front of a girl, hugging her, protecting her against cruel roisters.
"Papa!" he heard Baelfires's scream from the other side of the alley. A bag of tamarinds, nuts and raisins which he had so long and carefully chosen in the shop, fell to the ground. The boy, without a moment's hesitation, rushed to his father, picked up his wallowing staff, and turned to the offenders of the lady, knees bent, his face illumined with anger and determination.
The bullies retreated. One thing was to get at the crazy girl, but to attack, even in a predominant amount, two of them, one of whom was a boy, though younger than them, but looking downright furious, they had no desire. The youngsters retreated, hiding in the crowd. Nobody saw how badly Bae's hands trembled, clutching the makeshift mace to numbness.
"We're leaving, Bae, come on." the father told the boy in a muffled voice and they went away, leading the girl., with her fingers dripping blood onto the alley.
Again, they walked along the same road and again, she walked quietly, not crying, not complaining about the pain, not cradling her brutally beaten and scratched hands and not noticing her swollen forehead and temple. Rumpelstiltskin tried to get her to sit in the cart, but she just waved him off, smiling and shaking her head. He refused to understand it. How could she smile when all corners of his own soul howled in despair? As if teasing him she briskly walked forward, ahead of the truck. Bae caught up with her.
"Belle, why are you smiling?" the boy wondered, imagining how painful to have so many cuts and bruises. He certainly would not have smiled, but endured injuries silently, like a knight.
"Oh little Sparrow ... I'm just used to it. It is not the first and not the last time."
"Why didn't you run away? You could get away before papa found you.
"I know that if I had run away, the pain would have been even harder."
Gaston was lying in the shade of a bush of grass and chewing thoughtfully, watching over a herd. He had just seen a nice girl with a little boy pass him without noticing. Rumpelstiltskin 's wife, as he was explained later that evening by his mother-in-law, which were married by force. Now she looked terrible. Gaston could not believe that her husband could treat his wife like that, even a hated one. His Martha would have never ever been touched by him with bad intentions. His heart overflowed with compassion for the poor girl.
"I'm smiling, Bae," the girl began to answer the old question when they already went into the yard, for some reason looking at Rumpelstiltskin with laughing eyes, "because it is the first time that I have someone to protect me."