When Belle wakes up, there's light streaming in through the blinds in her room, throwing stripes of bright sunlight across her bed. It takes her a couple of seconds to realize she's alone, that Rum isn't in the bed with her, that he isn't even in the room.
She sits up as much as she can, the oxygen tube and IV pulling painfully as looks for him, but he's not there and Belle feels a quick surge of panic.
Oh god, what if he heard her last night? She thought she was safe, that he was asleep, but he must not have been, and Belle can't help but think she's scared him away.
She's starting to freak out when the door opens and Gold's standing there, still wearing the same rumpled suit he had on yesterday, and the amount of relief Belle feels when she sees him is almost absurd.
He looks tired; there's a day's worth of stubble on his face and he's got dark circles under his eyes, but he grins when he sees her, smiling so that his eyes crinkle up at the corners, and she just loves him so much.
"Hey," Gold says. He walks over to the bed and gives her a soft kiss on the corner of the mouth, the stubble on his cheek scratchy against her lips. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," she says, and she's almost surprised by how strong her voice sounds, how much better she actually does feel. Her throat barely hurts and her lungs feel free and open, like breathing isn't a horrible chore.
"Good." He gives her another quick kiss before settling in beside her, sitting on the bed so that they're hip to hip. "So," he says, leaning in with a conspiratorial whisper. "I got you something."
"Oh?" Belle says, wondering what else he could possibly do for her. She still hasn't had a chance to read any of the books he brought for her last night, and the roses have already bloomed a bit more, making the room smell just a little less cold and antiseptic.
He nods and hands her a small white box, the kind you put jewelry in. Belle gives him a confused look as she opens it, not sure what to expect, and when she realizes what it is, her heart flips in her chest.
The ring is simple enough - just a thin silver band with a small blue stone set into the center - but Belle just stares at it for what feels like a very long time. Even with the oxygen tube, she feels like she can't catch her breath.
Beside her, Rum clears his throat. "Since we're married now and all," he says lightly. "Didn't want anyone to get suspicious, you know?"
"Yeah," Belle finally says, glancing back up at him. The small stone is catching the sunlight that's coming in through the blinds, casting little bursts of blue light onto his face. "Yeah, that makes sense."
He's watching her carefully. "I know it's not particularly flashy," he tells her. "But the options at the gift shop were extremely limited."
Belle just nods, suddenly feeling like she might cry, tears pricking behind her eyes. It's just...no one's ever given her anything like this before. She reminds herself that this isn't real, that this is just part of them being able to see each other while she's here in the hospital, that it doesn't really mean they're married. But her hand trembles a little as she picks up the ring, the metal smooth and cool against her palm, and starts to slip it over her finger.
"Wait," Rum says, putting his hand over hers. His fingers are warm and dry against hers, his palm slightly calloused. "Allow me, my dear."
The corner of his mouth is quirked up in a half-smile as he holds gently onto her left wrist, careful not to press down on the tube from the IV. He holds her hand out flat and then slides the ring onto her finger, the one where a wedding ring is supposed to go.
"There you go," he says, adjusting the ring so that the stone is centered just right. "Perfect."
The metal is cool and smooth against her skin, and Belle's heart feels like it's not beating right. "Thank you," she manages.
He looks like he's going to say something else, but just then, a nurse comes into the room, bustling around, handing Belle a little paper container of meds and checking all the machines she's hooked up to and taking notes on Belle's chart. She keeps up a steady stream of chatter while she works, telling Belle how much better she's doing, how fast she's recovering.
Belle just sits there quietly, watching Rum, ignoring the nurse when she tsk tsks over the bruises on Belle's arms. He looks exhausted, and she wonders how much he actually slept last night.
The nurse is in the middle of taking her temperature when Rum's cell phone rings, making Belle jump a little. He reaches into his pocket and silences it, not even bothering to check who it is, just keeping his eye on Belle. Only a few seconds later, it beeps loudly, three times in a row, like someone's texting him pretty insistently. Gold sighs and digs the phone out of his pocket, checking the display.
"Shit," he says quietly, running a hand through his hair, making it even more of a mess than it already is.
Beside Belle, the nurse sighs. "Sir?" she says, slipping the thermometer back in its case. "There are no cell phones in here. You need to either turn it off or take it outside."
Gold nods distractedly, still staring down at the phone. "Yeah, yeah," he says, pushing himself to his feet. He catches Belle's eye on the way out the door, and gives her a quick, tired smile. "I'll be back in a couple of minutes, alright dear?"
Belle nods, biting on her lip and trying not to worry too much.
"Your husband seems really worried about you," the nurse tells her kindly. She's about the same age as Belle, and she's wearing on of those old-fashioned nurse's hats with her uniform. Belle didn't even know they made those anymore.
"Y-yeah," Belle stutters. "I guess."
"How long have you two been married?" the nurse asks as she checks on Belle's IV.
"Um," Belle says. She bites her lip, trying to think up what an appropriate answer is, trying to remember when she first met Gold, that day when he took her down to the station and listened to her ramble on about Hemingway. It feels like forever ago. "A...a year?"
"Ah," the nurse says with a wink. "Newlyweds. No wonder he doesn't want to leave your side."
Belle feels herself blush, which is absurd because it's not like they've actually got some kind of adorable true love marriage or something. But, still. The ring he gave her is cool against her finger, and it's just nice to pretend, even if it's only for a little while.
When Rum finally makes it back into the room, Belle's a couple of chapters into one of the books he brought her last night, this terrible romance about a naive young girl and a dark, brooding prince who Belle can already tell is going to sweep the girl off her feet in the most obnoxiously unrealistic way possible.
"Hey," she says, closing the book and setting it back down on the table next to her bed beside the vase of flowers. "Everything okay?"
Gold nods, giving her what he probably hopes is a reassuring smile. It doesn't reach his eyes, though, and Belle feels a quick flash of worry.
"You're sure?" she asks.
"Of course," he tells her, making his way over to the bed. He sits beside her, his hip bumping hers, and puts his good hand on the blanket over her leg. His skin is cold even though the thick cotton and he smells vaguely of snow. "It was just work. Nothing to be concerned about."
"Do you need to go in?" she says, worried that they maybe found out about her, worried that she's gotten him into trouble somehow.
He shakes his head and reaches up with his injured hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers are red from the cold, and she shivers a little when they brush against her skin.
"Not at all," he tells her, and whatever tension was in his face before is gone now. "I'm yours for the day."
Belle smiles, leaning into his hand, the cast scratchy and rough against her cheek.
"So," he says, settling in next to her. "The nurse tells me you'll probably be able to go home later today."
"Oh," Belle says because that's...that's great, really. She does feel better, better than she has in weeks. And it's not that she doesn't want to be healthy again. It's just...there's probably no reason for her to stay with him once she's not sick anymore. "Good."
"Hey," he says, reaching out and taking her hand with his non-bandaged one. "Everything okay?"
Belle nods, swallowing hard. Of course she's going to get better, and she's going to have to go back to her life, back to giving blow jobs in the snow for twenty bucks. It's not like she can just walk away. God, even if she did want to quit now, she couldn't. Gaston's got her for at least another year and after the past couple of days with her being gone, he's probably going to tell her she owes him another six months or something. It's just so unfair, how much her life sucks, how just thinking about it makes her feel sick, her breath hitching in her throat and her eyes hot with tears.
"Belle?" Rum says, sounding worried. "Hey, what's wrong?"
Belle just shakes her head, blinking away the tears, concentrating hard on watching his hand in hers, looking at the way the ring fits perfectly on her finger, like he knew exactly what size to get.
He keeps stroking his thumb over the back of her hand, being careful of the spot where her IV goes in. It's the same hand as the one with her hospital bracelet and she really looks at it for the first time, noticing that she's apparently not in Storybrooke General.
"Why did we come all the way out here?" she asks, trying to focus on something besides how terrible her life is. The hospital miles and miles from Storybrooke, in a town she's never been to.
Gold doesn't answer at first, just looks down, like he's trying to decide what to say, before he says, "If we went to the hospital there, someone might have known me or you and..." he trails off and Belle feels like she might cry again.
"And you didn't want to show up with a whore," she finishes bitterly, pulling her hand away from his.
"No, no, sweetheart," he says, reaching for her, taking her hand in his again.
"Right," Belle says, shaking her head ruefully. God, she can't believe how stupid she is. Falling in love with him, acting like the ring is such a big deal. He probably just didn't want to get caught, have people realize she's nothing more than a street whore.
He toys with her ring, using his thumb to slide the stone back and forth over the top of her finger. "Ruby came to the station the other day," he tells her.
Belle blinks. "What?"
"She wanted to report you as a missing person."
"What did you tell her?"
"That I didn't have any idea where you were," he says, his voice tight. "Which at the time was true."
"Oh," Belle says, feeling a surge of guilt.
After a couple of seconds, Gold clears his throat, and looks down at his hand, the one with the cast. "If we stayed in Storybrooke, someone would have found you," he says. "And I wasn't sure if that was such a good idea."
"Why not?" she asks, confused.
For a long moment, Gold doesn't say anything. She can see the muscles in his jaw working, tense beneath his skin, so she just waits it out. Finally: "I talked to your father."
"What?" Of all the things she expected him to say, it definitely wasn't that.
"I needed to find you," he tells her. "You'd been gone for hours. I thought perhaps he could help."
"What did he say?" Belle asks, and she hates that she sounds hopeful, that she can't stop wishing that her father would magically start caring about her.
Gold shakes his head, but his expression has gone cold and hard. He lets go of her hand again and pulls away from her, sitting so that he's not touching her at all.
"Nothing," he finally says. He glances back down at his hand, and Belle follows his gaze down to where he's curling his fingers, clenching his hand over and over again like he's making a fist.
Oh. Oh, god. His hand. It was really messed up yesterday, the knuckles all bloody and bruised, the kind of cuts you get from hitting someone. She can only imagine the kinds of things her father might have said to him.
"How badly did you hurt him?" she asks, fiddling with her ring, spinning it around and around on her finger.
"No, Belle I - " he starts, like he's going to deny it, but then he sighs, sounding very, very tired. "I don't know. Rather badly, I suspect."
Belle nods. "And you're not going to tell me what he said to make you do it?"
He sighs again, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "Does it matter?"
Belle wants to tell him that it does, that it does matter why he felt the need to beat her father so badly that it broke his hand, but the truth is, she's not sure that it does.
"No," she says, and he glances up at her, surprised. She's just so tired of caring about what happens to her father, and of things between her and Rum being so weird. "No, it doesn't."
The doctor comes in a few hours later and looks her over and gives her the all clear. He prescribes her three different medications, and Rum goes down to the pharmacy to get them filled while the nurses work on getting Belle all unhooked from all the machines and tubes and everything.
She's just finishing up getting dressed - putting on the blue sweater and jeans that Rum bought for her - when he comes back into the room, the little white paper bag from the pharmacy in one hand.
"You ready?" he asks, picking up the books and the roses from the bedside table. She doesn't have anything else that's hers, which is pretty pathetic.
Belle nods, pulling at a slightly loose thread on the cuff of her sweater. It's already pulled in a couple of places, probably from when the nurses had to yank it off her while she was still unconscious. "I don't want to go back," she confesses, just blurting it out because she can't think of how exactly she wants to say it.
"Oh," he says, taking a step back, this look on his face like she's punched him. "That's - that's okay, dear. There, there are some shelters downtown, I think...and they might have some room, or I can talk to the Sheriff, or..."
"No!" she says, interrupting him once she figures out what he's saying, that he thought she meant she didn't want to go back with him. It's so absurdly far from the truth, Belle's not sure if she want to laugh or cry. "No, I mean, I don't want to go back to what I was, before I was...before we were...before you," she finishes lamely.
"Oh, Belle," he murmurs, wrapping his arms around her, strong and warm and comforting. "I don't want that either, love."
Belle closes her eyes, pressing herself closer to him, wrapping her arms around his back, holding onto him as tightly as she can.
"I want more than anything for you not to go back," he says, his voice practically a whisper. He rests his chin on the crown of her head and holds her to him so tight that she can feel his heart beat against her chest. "And, hey," he says. "You don't have to, okay, sweetheart? You don't ever have to go back. You can stay with me as long as you want," he tells her, pulling back enough to look her in the eye. "You can stay with me forever."
Belle strokes her left thumb over the back of the ring on her finger, rubbing gently at the cool, smooth metal against her skin. Her chest feels tight as she holds onto him, pressing her nose against his throat, wishing as hard as she can that what he's saying could be true.
