a/n: hey guys, i don't know how this chapter will be. i might go back re-haul it later. eh. so it's the climax of part one! don't worry, there is a whole lot more story to go. :D
thank you: Princess Shahrazad, boyslikegirls21, TangledGirlForever, PampleMousse07, and EugeneLoverRapunzel for reviewing! :) you guys are amazing, and i hope this chapter is alright! thanks again!
It is dark. She can't see anything, but: the feel of the wooden steps beneath her feet, the rough-hewn stone beneath her fingers; the smell of damp air mixed with lilacs and lavender (Mother's favorite perfume); the taste that is somehow lingering on her tongue from a meal she doesn't remember eating—hazelnut soup—; all these things tell her she is in the tower.
She doesn't need to see to know that.
Lifting her hand before her eyes (a task that, for some reason, takes her an unusually long amount of time) she can see nothing but black. She blinks, squinting and widening, but all that remains is the dark.
By the feel of things she is on the stairs leading down from her loft to the main circular room beneath her. Gingerly she slides one foot forward, feeling thick and sluggish, until it hits the edge of something and drops suddenly down, like a rock, to the step below. She follows with her other foot. Her mind flits like a hummingbird, and she has trouble focusing on this simple task—one foot two foot three foot four.
For a moment she forgets how many steps lead from her loft to the floor, which is odd because she has been counting them for nearly eighteen years. She thought for sure there had always been twelve, but this time she counts thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, twenty-five, twenty-six—"Maybe I've just been counting wrong all my life," she says to no one in particular, but the dark swallows up the words and she is left wondering if she ever spoke at all.
Finally she reaches the floor below, and the moment she does there is light. Not anything strong—a flickering candle by her foot, and she wonders why she did not see it before. She picks it up by the brass handle of the small plate it sits on, blinking rapidly. Its glow does not go far. It is swallowed up by black almost as soon as it escapes. Her breath causes the flame to waver more and she quickly moves it away from her face.
She squints into the dark, because at the edge of her little glow she can see something.
It's glistening faintly, a slight sheen that catches the light and reflects it back. She frowns, because it looks almost black. She knows that darkness cannot crawl and so, rather fearlessly, she steps forward, shedding a little more of her flame onto the mysterious substance. It turns a sudden crimson, a blanket of red, and her frown deepens.
Step forward.
Here something else is coming into view, but because she is still listless and lethargic, her thoughts pushing through honey to reach the surface of her mind, it doesn't register right away what it is; so, she continues on.
Step forward.
Pale, standing out against the red. Stained scarlet. Tips of fingers open as if reaching for something. For what?
Step forward.
It's a hand, she thinks, a second before she sees the arm it is connected to. Out of some macabre curiosity that has suddenly gripped her she takes another step step, causing the little flame to flicker uncontrollably for a moment, plunging her quickly into black before the bright yellow-orange comes back again.
Arm, she reflects, not noticing the red pooling up and around her bare feet, shoulder, neck, head—
The head is twisted at a wrong angle, she can't make out the face, so she bends down, hardly noticing the dark swatch her pale pink dress cuts through the crimson covering on the floor. Placing the candle in her opposite hand, she gingerly reaches down and pushes—
She screams, shooting backward, dropping the candle, screaming again because she doesn't think the darkness heard her the first time, and then she is shouting things, random things she does not know the meaning of—flower mother help save please—but mostly just Eugene Eugene Eugene because she can't get the picture out of her head, the mouth gone slack, the face gone pale, the red dripping down the forehead and the hair matted to one side—the candle flame flickers momentarily and then is out, and she is shuttled quickly back to the darkness before, feeding off the air and blood and who-knows-what-else, the flame is springing back to life, eating the floorboards and the body despite her screaming—
Her lower back hits something, a wall where her stairs should have been, except there is nothing but open air and she is falling, falling, falling, backwards into an even darker sky, and only as she falls, his name still on her lips, does she realize that there is nothing long and heavy dragging her down—there is no gold, only short, choppy strokes—and she wonders why Mother must take everything she loves and then wonders at the thought and then wonders why she is still falling,
"Rapunzel."
falling,
"Rapunzel!"
falling,
"RAPUNZEL!"
She falls to the floor as her eyes shoot open. The chair she was on does not apologize, and she frowns. Getting to her feet, she wipes at the wetness on her cheeks. Trying to smooth out the crinkles in her dress, she takes a moment to get her bearings—the sun is setting, and her mother's annoyed voice is filtering in through the window.
"Rapunzel, really, I'm not getting any younger down here."
"Coming, Mother!" she shouts rather hoarsely, hoping it carries. She doesn't move, however. Her heart is still racing. Images float through her mind, blood and twisted necks and darkness, but also sun and green and light because of her trip outside with Eugene earlier that day.
She must have fallen asleep when she got home.
Which meant the tower was still a mess.
She's not one to curse but she can think of several choice words that Eugene would use if he were here. She races to the kitchen, scooping up dirty plates still there into the sink. With one pump hot water is spilling over them. She takes up the broom sitting by the pot that trash is thrown in and sweeps it rather half-heartedly across the floor. Stepping back to look at her handiwork, she sighs, blowing up a loose strand of gold.
Nothing is meticulous. Mother will scold her.
"Coming, coming," she sing-songs underneath her breath, almost to the window when she realizes that she's still wearing her dirty slippers from this afternoon. "No—no—" she steps back, hopping towards her loft, pulling off one muddied and soiled shoe and then the other. She runs upstairs.
"Rapunzel, let your hair down, right now."
"Yes, Mother! One second!"
Where to put them? She's running out of hiding places for things. Her paint box is housing her pinecones. Beneath her pillow is the book Eugene brought her what seems like forever ago. She shoves the dirty slippers beneath her mattress and the bed frame and runs back towards the window, nearly falling in her haste.
Her hair spills golden to the ground below.
"Rapunzel, that is unacceptable." Her mother says as she finally climbs into the window. "I just waited out there for nearly ten minutes. Ten minutes! And I was in such a good mood—I had the biggest surprise. Hazelnut soup, for dinner. But I don't much feel like making it anymore."
Rapunzel tries to ignore the pain emanating from her roots and pounding behind her eyes, instead focusing on keeping calm and pulling up her hair back into the tower room. "I'm sorry mother," she manages, trying not to sound to out-of-breath, "I fell asleep."
"Tsk." Gothel frowns, placing the basket she had slung over one arm onto the table; Rapunzel can see her clear eyes taking in the chair that was haphazardly pushed into the middle of the floor, the mess piled high in the kitchen. She massages her temples.
Is it just her, or does Mother look older than usual? Her dark hair is laced with gray, and lines have taken up residence beneath her eyes. She knows what's coming next even before her mother says it.
"Well, dear, thanks to all that waiting I'm feeling a little run down. Would you sing for me? Then perhaps I'll be feeling well enough to make that soup."
Rapunzel places a rickety three-legged stool by the already moved chair, hands her mother a brush, and silent sits down, a song on her lips. Her mother begins moving the comb methodically.
It is trouble when her mother's nimble fingers stop their movement at the back of her head.
Her breath hitches. She can feel the brush inches above her golden hair. And when it does not come down again right away she fears she has been careless.
"Well, Rapunzel, this is odd."
Breathe. Breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth, calm, slow—
"Hm, Mother? What do you mean?"
"This. I think this is rather odd."
Suddenly her mother's slim hand enters her vision, and for a moment she can focus only upon the single age-spot that has taken up stubborn residence beside her knuckle, oval and brown, despite the magic that has smoothed the rest of the wrinkles and gray from her face. Then her gaze travels up, and she finds herself looking at a small leaf, a twig, really, but even that—
"What is that, Mother?"
"Really, Rapunzel, playing stupid is not exactly becoming, is it?" She feels her mother shift behind her, moving from her chair to walk in a dangerously slow circle until she stops directly in front of Rapunzel, blocking her view of the fireplace. She can see nothing but crimson dress, draping in graceful folds over her mother's skinny, youthful body.
Too close to her scalp. The twig was too close to her scalp. She couldn't explain it away as getting caught there when her mother climbed upward.
Her mother bends down until she is looking Rapunzel, where she sits on her rickety, three-legged stool, in the eyes, the leaf a sentinel between them. "Care to explain this?"
Her silence might as well have been a confession.
The twig snaps as her mother's hand slams closed around it; she hears the crack and break and flinches as nothing but bits of dust and green rain to the stone floor.
"Rapunzel, have you been outside?"
He's trying to be inconspicuous but it's hard with Hook-Hand so close.
"SO HOW'S RAPUNZEL?" he yells, unnecessarily loud, and Flynn flinches backward, further into the corner he has wedged himself in. He deigns not to respond, instead taking a sip of whatever the bar tender placed in front of him and gasping as it burns down his throat.
He doesn't really know how she is. He's been up at the capital, getting supplies for his makeshift camp; he got waylaid on the return trip by a contingent of palace guards. It's been a couple of days, and all he can hope is that she doesn't think he got killed—she still worries over that stupid as hell fortune teller.
He doesn't tell Hook-Hand any of this. Instead he listens to the crowd around him, the yells for more beer, the brawls, the sobbing, the quiet, the too-free girls, and takes another sip from his chipped mug. So, because of his silence, Hook-Hand yells once more:
"I SAID, HOW'S MY GIRL?"
"She's not your girl." He growls into his drink. "And I'm not here to discuss Rapunzel."
Hook-Hand looks disappointed, cutting a pattern into the wood before him. "Well then, Rider, what are you here to discuss? I'm a busy man, you know."
Flynn snorts. "I'm sure. I just…couldn't find anyone willing to tell me about what the Stabbingtons are up to."
"Where? Up at the capital?"
"Yeah. They all just…" Flynn sets down his drink and rubs his neck uncomfortably. "It was like they disappeared off the face of the earth. No has seen them up there for awhile."
"Maybe they did just disappear. I wouldn't put it past the Stabbingtons to pull an act like that."
"But I saw them. We saw them. In this place, just last week—"
"So you thought I had more information on them? I don't keep close tabs on those brothers, Rider, they're dangerous."
"You've had to have heard something." He doesn't know why he's so desperate—at least, that's what he tries to tell himself. In reality he knows perfectly well.
Because if they catch him he's more a dead man than if the palace guards caught up to him.
Because if the Stabbingtons have taken up residence here, he as to leave. Old lady be damned. Money be damned.
Rapunzel be…
He shakes his head.
Hook-Hand watches him through narrowed eyes, chipping away absentmindedly at the bar. The door to the tavern opens and Flynn whips his head around, expecting to see two large silhouettes, infinitely relieved when a small, rather unsteady looking fellow enters, pushing his way through the crowd.
"Alright, Rider, I'll tell you what I know." Hook-Hand says finally, rubbing the makings of a beard with his good hand. "But on one condition—"
"Always the conditions."
"—you bring Rapunzel back here for a visit."
"…You are really infatuated with her, aren't you?"
"…Maybe."
"She's taken."
"By who?"
"Her boyfriend."
"Only person I saw her with was you, Rider."
"Yeah, well, I was taking her. To meet her boyfriend."
"Oh really? Where does he live?"
"OK, enough!" Flynn looks annoyed. "Just tell me what you know."
Hook-Hand takes a sip of his drink. "They came in here a couple of days ago, talking about a new job they had."
Flynn's eyebrows shoot up but he remains silent.
"Alright, so they weren't talking outright about the job, but I overheard the one brother talking to the other brother about how they had to find this tower—"
Flynn suddenly has a hard time breathing, because of all the possibilities playing out in his head this was not one of them. "A tower?"
"Yeah, something in the woods. They had to meet someone there to get their payment, and they were arguing over the best way to get there."
"A tower."
"Yeah, that's what I said, Rider." Hook-Hand frowns. "Are you alright?"
"No." His mouth is dry and his head is reeling and he can't think straight and he doesn't even know what is happening, just that he needs to get to the tower now—
He runs.
"Stop looking at me like that, Rapunzel, really." She bends down to rub a hand lovingly along her daughter's head. "This will all turn out for the best. Trust me."
The trees slap his face. Above him the sky grows dark, and greenish, ugly clouds gather at the edges of the world, heading towards him.
"You're sure he will come?" she asks.
"Yes." His voice is raspy and rough. "Laid a bit of a bait over at the local tavern. If I know Rider, he'll be asking about us. And he'll come."
She's angry with her mother, for the first time in her life. She can't see her. The woman disappeared into the floor, some sort of entry she vaguely remembers her mother using as a child. Voices float up from below, but as she tries to move closer to the secret entrance in the flickering light of the fire she's struck by the fact that she can't move.
She tries to tell herself that her mother had a good reason for binding her arms, but all she can see is the trap door and her mother's reasoning, suddenly clear before her—
She will never escape this prison.
"If all goes according to plan then you get the money, as promised."
"You promised us something more."
"Yes, yes—do you think I care what happens to Rider? He's yours to deal with."
"Then we'll make sure all goes according to plan."
"I look forward to it."
He just makes it to the tower base before the rain starts. He can't see anything, just senses the large forest, overgrown and wild around him. He considers, momentarily, calling for Rapunzel's hair, but remembers just in time that her Mother is probably home.
He really didn't think this through, did he?
There are no signs of the Stabbington Brothers. He ignores the rain, wishing for a stars or some moon to light his way, and finds, with outstretched hands, the stone of the tower. Then he begins to climb.
He vaguely remembers that moment when he climbed the tower all those weeks ago, wondering what on earth he would find at the top.
Now he still wonders what'll be waiting for him.
He's missed the window in the dark, and can just make out the outline, lit by some sort of fire; he has to climb sideways for several feet, before continuing upward. By the time his hands grip the ledge he's soaked to the bone, tired, and out-of-breath. He gingerly peers up into the tower room.
For a moment everything seems normal, and he briefly entertains sliding quickly back down. The fire is on in the fireplace. There is food at the table but it doesn't look like it's been touched. Not a soul in the place. Then his gaze wanders over the stairs and he sees her.
She's bound at the wrists, a rope attached to the banister, like some sort of dog. He doesn't think, just jumps up and over the ledge, into the room, landing lightly on the ground. All he can hear is the rain.
"Mmeugenemmf!" She gasps, suddenly spying him. Her mouth is covered by a white cloth and she struggles forward, eyes wide, jerking her head rapidly towards the window he just came from. He ignores her, rushes forward, is three feet from her when something grabs the back of his shirt and tosses him to the floor.
The wind is knocked out of him, and he tries to catch his breath. All he can think is: what the hell is going on here, on repeat, but then a muddied boot enters his line of sight.
"Well, well, well. Rider. It's been awhile."
Damn. Damn it all. He never should of come here. Not without a plan.
"Not long enough." He hisses out, springing to his feet and readying a punch, only to feel a strong grip on his fist as he throws it backwards.
His arms twist and he is forced to the ground. He looks up into the face of the other brother, eye-patch twisted cruelly. He can hear Rapunzel struggling from the stairs.
"Well, isn't this darling."
That voice. He hasn't heard that voice in so long. He struggles against the grip that has him as she rises from the ground—
A trap door. That would explain things.
She floats towards him; he doesn't remember her looking quite so old. Her hair is dappled grey, age spots dot her arms, her clear eyes are clouded at the corners.
"Flynn Rider. I heard you were the number one thief in Corona. I heard stories of the path of brokenhearted girls and stolen jewels you left in your wake. I had it on good authority from several persons that you were credibly heartless."
There is a deathly silence. Rapunzel no longer moves from the stairs.
He hears it, in this silence. The end of everything he has ever come to remotely care about. The end of this lie.
End of line.
"I also had it on good authority that you were fairly competent at following orders, if the right amount of gold was involved." The woman moves towards where Rapunzel is sitting, wide-eyed, and gently removes the gag from her mouth. The girl's lips are dry and cracked. He flinches at the expression there.
"Eugene?" she whispers. "Eugene, what is she talking about?"
He doesn't know what to say. He can't talk his way out of this one.
"Yes, Flynn Rider," the woman spits his name out like poison, "what am I talking about?"
When he doesn't speak the brother holding him delivers a swift kick to his lower back, and he doubles over onto the floor. "I was fortunate," the woman continues, "to meet these fellows on my travels. Fairly competent at their job, I hear. And with a healthy dose of hatred for Flynn Rider. What did you do, I wonder?"
"Left us to rot, that's what he did." The brother not holding him grabs his hair, pulls upward, and punches him in the stomach.
"Stop it!" Rapunzel screams.
"Silence!" Her mother roars.
Rapunzel, doe-eyed, tries to stand, but the ropes around her wrist prevent her. "I don't understand. Please let him go, stop it. I won't ever leave again, I promise, just let him go—"
"But dear, you should be angry at this man."
"No, Mother—he showed me amazing things, and I don't think the outside world is all that bad—"
"Lies, Rapunzel. The outside world is a dangerous place."
"No, it's not, if you would just listen—"
"Tell her now, Rider. Tell her about this little game you were playing, because if you don't, I will."
"What will it accomplish?" he heaves out. "She'll hate the both of us, then."
"Then so be it."
"Seriously?"
"You are her window to the outside world, Flynn Rider. I should have never let it get this far. My mistake. I don't make very many of them."
"I am right here!" Rapunzel shouts, finally struggling to her feet against the ropes. "I am right here, and I want to know what's going on!"
"Bring him closer."
The brothers comply, shoving him along the floor until he is struggling before mother and daughter. He looks up into her eyes and opens his mouth.
"I'm sorry, Rapunzel. I never meant for it to go this far."
"For what to go this far? Eugene, what are you talking about?"
"Your mother…contacted me. I only found your tower because she told me where it was. She…she paid me."
"For what?" her words are a whisper.
"She paid me to make you fall in love with me."
The disbelieving look on her face is going to kill him.
"Then I was to break your heart."
"Don't you see my flower?" Gothel soothes, fussing with her hair. "It was all a lie. Rider was never supposed to take you out of the tower, however. Thus I terminated his employment."
She doesn't see any of it. She doesn't get her mother's twisted logic, or why Eugene would agree to such a thing, doesn't see it—doesn't get why she must live her life locked away in a tower, why she follows her mother, why she does these things. Everything, information, is coming in slow waves to her.
Strip it down to its barest form and three things were certain:
Flynn Rider, Eugene Fitzherbert, whoever he was, had no feelings for her, was a liar and a thief, and she had fallen for it all.
Gothel was only interested in keeping her locked up, away from the world outside.
And she wanted no more of any of it.
She struggles against the bonds tying her to the banister, ignoring the pained look on Eu—Flynn's face as he stares up at her, outlined by the two, grisly twin brothers.
"Let me go." She snaps at her mother.
"My flower—"
"Now, Mother!"
A stupid plan, but a plan nonetheless. The rain pounds out the background music to her drama. The firelight flickers. Her mother frowns, goes to the trap door, shuts it, and locks it with a key she pulls from the folds of her cloak. Rapunzel eyes her shrewdly as she tucks it away. As the ropes fall away from her she engulfs her mother in a hug, fighting every sense in her body that is telling her to run away.
"I'm sorry, Mother. I understand why you did it now."
That was a lie. She would never understand.
"Good, my flower."
"Please forgive me, I'll never go outside again."
And with that she pulls the key from the depths of her mother's cloak and throws it into the fire, where it cracks and sizzles and sparks.
"No!" Gothel runs towards it, barely stopping herself from reaching bare-handed into the flames. "Rapunzel, why would you—"
But she isn't listening. She's at the window, tossing down her hair to the darkness below, feeling it grow heavy and thick in the rain. She sends one look back to Flynn Rider and thinks that one part of her heart breaks off and falls away.
She meets his eyes, and for the first time, looking at the scene before her—her mother, reaching for the tongs to save the key, the Stabbington Brothers, looking between their employer and the girl escaping, and Flynn, nearly beneath them, Flynn, whom in her dream had been broken and bloody, Flynn, who she thinks she might love—for the first time she is not afraid to jump, and she does.
Her mother's scream is loud and long, shrieking into the night. The sounds of a scuffle reach her as she plants bare feet onto the wet, slick grass, slipping and sliding to her knees in the rain. Her hair catches on the iron hook and she tries in vain to bring the rest of it down to her, but can't—it's heavy and wet and catching, and she thinks her head might explode until—
It falls into a weighty pile beside her. She looks up, thinks she spies Flynn, but maybe it's just her imagination, her hopes, her dreams—
She thinks she is crying but can't tell in the rain.
Scooping up the darkened gold, as much as she can carry, she starts to run. Her feet take her on a familiar path; behind her, her hair drags in mud and dirt and slows her down.
She doesn't know anything. Can't think of anything. The trees are dark and menacing. The sky is threatening. Lightning flickers in the distance. In her mind she hears the shouts of her mother.
Carry on. The only way left is forward.
"DAMN IT!" Her anger is boiling over, striking everything it can reach. Chairs topple, plates crash, and the key sits on the table, cooling, leaving a burn mark in its wake.
"Blinded by greed, huh?" The damned Rider is leaning over the window, looking weary and defeated. The Stabbingtons are advancing upon him. "Flawed plan all around, old lady."
"Leave him!" Gothel roars. "Or you don't get the gold! Find the girl and bring her back to me! Only then will you get the payment!"
"You need her hair, don't you." Rider continues, and the only coherent part of her at the moment thinks that he is smarter than she gave him credit for. "To stay alive. To stay young. You are looking rather old tonight."
"Shut him up." She hasn't lost her cool like this in a long time. One of the brothers takes a swing at Rider's head and he goes down like a sack of bricks.
"Hair? Why do you need her hair?" one of them asks, turning around to look at her. She brushes aside his comment.
"Climb down and get the girl. I'll pay you double."
"And Rider?"
"Will be safely here, waiting on pins and needles for your return."
The brothers look at each other and Gothel wants to claw their eyes out.
"Fine," one says after a moment, and they move around Rider's prone form to the window.
"And boys?"
"Yeah?"
So disrespectful.
"I don't need her alive. But do not cut a piece of hair off her head." Part of her mourns the loss of a daughter. But she loves her hair more. Loves the magic more.
And the magic will work as long as her hair is intact.
She repeats, "I don't need her alive."
She trips in the road and falls to her knees, her hair falling around her. She is tired, and does not know if she is going the right way, but knows that she has to keep moving. Her mother will not let her leave. Not without a fight.
She's scared. The rain pounds and she can't see and she's scared. She sits there for a moment in the side of the road, and wonders at the turn her life has taken.
She has to keep moving but doesn't want to.
She doesn't hear the carriage through the rain until it is almost upon her.
She flings herself backward but the mud of the dirt road stops her. The carriage is not old, like one she saw (a long time ago) but it seems modest. A dark, navy color that blends in to the night. It rattles to a stop, and she doesn't have the energy to back farther away.
The door opens and a man comes out, despite the rain.
"Hullo, are you alright?"
No. No, she isn't.
"Here, let me help you—" he reaches down a hand. She can't see his face in the half-light but she thinks there are others in the carriage, can faintly hear their voices.
The hand, large, hangs patiently in the air.
She takes it.
a/n: if you guess who the guy is, i'll bow down to your tangled knowledge.