Thick flurries of alabaster snow swirled over the rolling banks of frost upon the sleeping world of Storybrooke. The quaint hamlet slumbered soundly under the snow and was transformed into a forlorn tundra over the past few days of relentless frost packed neatly upon the world. Barren tree limbs were crested with frost and the edges of houses sat fanged with translucent icicles. Snow sat layered upon the world like icing decorated on a cake. World enraptured in all the frigid glory of winter, the town looked as picturesque as a postcard.
Oh but what a tangled woven web lay beneath the drifts of frost! Who on the outside of the frozen province would ever believe that magic played a part in all their lives and that the man responsible for such power was about to cast away all that made him unique?
Belle felt the taint of sheer hopelessness darken her soul as she stared into the thick banks impeding her path. Despair tinged her heart in a streak of sable slashing down to her very core. The roads were blocked and many that were clear lay slick with treacherous black ice. She could never make it to the town line in time. Even if her love hadn't teleported to the outskirts of the county, which she weighed in her mind, she couldn't hope to make the journey on foot through the hazardous ice and frost and more so with a car.
Here we was about to make one of the biggest mistakes of his life and she couldn't even reach him! Leaning against a frigid light pole the beauty muttered a curse in a cloud of gray breath. Distraught, Belle pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. "Rumpel." His name hissed from her lips. Plumes of gray clouds stole in wisps from her mouth and swirled against the brisk wind as though taking his name so sadly uttered to the fiends ears.
She couldn't reach him in time, and by the looks of the gray sky the snow was not far in coming down once more as well.
Struck with a sudden epiphany, the beauty looked up from the morass of her despair. Perhaps there was a way to arrive at the border. Turning to the opposite direction, the beauty stared down the lonely sidewalk. If there was no way to reach him in time by walking then there was only one last option to attempt. Though that option could have her life in peril, there was no other way to reach her love in time or at least reach him after his disastrous choice.
Hands wrapped about her slender form, the beauty trudged stoically to the office of Madame Mayor Regina Mills.
~8~8~
Gray dimness from the failing light of day seeped insipidly through the gauzy gray curtains in the mayors top floor office. The world outside was a creamy iron hue casting the black and white walls into the scene of some winter forest of some ancient woodland.
Inside, the cold that swept the town and enthralled the hamlet in winters cruel gripped was dashed to nothingness. Wood crackled merrily in the fireplace in the black and white motif office. Soft orange light cast dull shadows against the soft hued furniture and the woman sitting close to their biting tongues of flames.
Regina stared thoughtfully into the guttering fire in the hearth of her white and black motif office, like a cat entranced by the flames. Donned in a black suit and short office like skirt, she still looked as regal in her office as she did a queen haunting her private quarters on a lone winters day.
Gazing into the hearth, her mind conjured images of the twists and turns her life had taken. Red teeth gnashed at the wood, flickering and popping somberly in the fireplace, gathering the images then whisking them away. To Regina the fire was like the back and forth warfare in her mind between good and evil. Henry wanted her to be good, and even she wished to be that person of old, but after everything that had happened, after all she had done, could she truly be good?
Casually sipping a glass tumbler of mulled cider, Regina frowned ponderously into the flames. The alcohol pleasantly numbed the lingering aches from the gone bruises on her body. After Rumpelstiltskin harm she was healing nicely. Of course that would not ever make up for his damage done to her, and like so many of her hurts, at least the physical wounds were no longer present on his pallid flesh.
A mirthless chuckle at the depressing thought fell from her lips in ironic amusement. Was her life always to be that way, to bear her pains and scars scored across her heart rather than on her skin? Or could she heal those wounds?
Even as the contemplation entered her mind, the witch sensed another presence. Alarm tingled against her pale skin, but she remained sitting where she was.
"Regina, I need your help." Belle burst into the room, snatching the thought away from the powerful mayor.
Somber brown eyes pinioned upon the bickering flames the mayor huffed mirthlessly. She should have been incensed upon the unwarranted intrusion, but her heart could not find enough ire to care about Rumpelstiltskin's irksome slave girl. "Help from me? Why would I possibly help the beast's crazy love?"
Why did someone with Rumpelstiltskin, the undisputed, most powerful magician in all the realms, entrapped in the palm of their hand need help from anyone? The imp was practically enslaved to his precious Belle. He went even so far as trying to "change" for her all to show his ardor and want for her.
"Because I helped you." The beauty explained desperately in a surge of panic. Striding briskly through the dim room she stood at the side of the chair, looking down at the sorceress. "I could have easily left you in that room to await death at his leisure."
The cunning sorceress shook her head. "But you didn't." Regina parried carefully. A small smirk tipped her glossy lips. "You're too good to let your 'Rum' succumb to such darkness."
Taking a step forward, Belle stood oblique to the fire. "And what are you, Regina? This is your chance to do something good. Even to some one who might not deserve saving."
There was a point there, Regina admitted begrudgingly to herself. Shifting uncomfortably in her leather chair she diverted her eyes to the popping logs instead of the biting flames. She was trying to the a better mother for Henry, but that did not imply she had to help the love of her nemesis, the one who played her like a puppet all those years.
"What's it you need?" She queried quietly into the rim of her crystalline tumbler, not agreeing to aid, but listening all the same.
Relived for at least a foot in the door, Belle gathered her courage. "A teleportation spell. To the town line." She breathed out at once.
"Why don't you just get you little boyfriend to…. Oh." Realization dawned upon her, gracing light to her curiosity. Her ruby lips split into a blood red crescent. "Oh I see. He's doing something at the town border you don't want."
Frantically the beauty nodded. "Very much so. I have to stop him, I have too. You're my last hope Regina. I can't reach the line on foot and the roads are too treacherous to dare with haste."
Smiling slyly, Regina arched in her seat like a stretching cat after a comfortable doze. Whatever Belle was determined to stop probably was in her interest as well. Nothing the dark toad ever planned usually ended in anyone's favor but his own.
"Very well." Waving her hands, utter, fathomless black exploded from her palm. "I suppose I do owe you something for freeing me."
In an instant, Belle was engulfed in a steamy morass of darkness. Sable clawed at her skin and dark fire burned her eyes. Pain exploded in her aching lungs with the jolt of being transported miles and miles away. Still, she knew she would make her destination, the only question was, would she be too late.
~8~8~
Twilight clawed over the world as the Dark One stopped his car at the edge of the forest where Storybrooke ended and the new world began. The trip had taken longer than expected, but his course had not changed. If anything, he was more resilient to his task.
Slipping from his black vehicle, the fiend limped vapidly to the bright orange paint along the road. Though the road was barely cleaned but the orange stood out against the dirty snow and the black asphalt.
Car rumbling softly next to the town line, Rumpelstiltskin stared at the bright orange boundary between his old and new life. He would have teleported himself to the border, but doing so would have gone against his promise to Belle. Would he end his life still breaking the promises to his love? No, that was not the way to begin a new life, still mired in his old. His new self would ask questions and that was the last thing he wished. Better to think himself in an accident or blacked out than anything as incredible as him being a powerful magician.
A thick envelope addressed to himself sat snugly under one of the windshield wipers to his car, detailing where his keys were and how to get back to town. While he wanted to forget all he had done to hurt his beloved heart, the last thing he wanted was to amble about the snow laden forest and die in the bitter cold. But if he did, he supposed grimly, then such a lonesome, frigid demise was no less than he deserved.
Standing at the border, both hands on the hilt of his gold cane, his eyes searched the snow laden pines and firs clustered on both sides of the barren roadway. Contentment soothed the last nagging of his soul into quietude like the land about him. The world was in a slumbering quiet, allotting him an odd peace in his black heart. Yes, he noted inwardly, this place would be a fine graveyard where Rumpelstiltskin died. There was no better place fitting for a coward that deserved to be alone.
"I hate you." He muttered aloud to himself, his eyes cast down to the gravel. "Dark One." The moniker spat past his mouth like gray poison taken by the air. "You've caused me nothing but pain and sorrow and I have allowed it because I am a coward. I couldn't stand up for my son, and I couldn't stand up to this curse. Goodbye forever."
Fear gripped his dark, palpitating heart at the end of the eulogy to himself, but he stared firmly at the slightly shimmering border. The small funeral to who he was was over, but even now was he too much a coward to swipe the slate of his being clean with hopes for goodness?
Stoically thrusting the thought far away from his mind, the fiend stared determinedly at the length of road snaking before him. This was for Belle. Could he not give up what little he had for her?
Taking a step towards the barrier, he toed the borders of orange. Biting down hard on his bottom lip, he steadied himself for one leap, and fought back down his terror of the unknown.
For Belle, he repeated inwardly, for his true love.
"Rumpel stop!" Belle cried out.
Grabbing him from behind, the brave beauty clutched at his suit jacket in a vice. Desperately, she tugged at the fine jacket, pulling him well back behind the line. He couldn't depart. Not that way.
Spinning around, the Dark One gaped at his Belle. Standing in a thin skirt and light jacket, she gazed up livingly towards him. Trails of smoky ebon power drifted from her skin and swirled intro the crisp air.
Blinking owlishly, he stared. What was she doing there? "Belle how, why…?"
"Regina transported me." The beauty explained breathlessly, her body trembling with the excitement of nearly watching her love become no more.
His brow knitted slightly in consternation. "Regina helped you?"
"She owed me. I helped her." Belle replied. "She showed me there was a little good in her soul, just like I know what's in you."
"There is no good in me, Belle." He shook his head mournfully, his heart falling back into the chasm or regret. "How can there be? This is the only way to prove to you, to make me be a good man"
Clutching her love, determined not to let him take another step, she stared deeply into his chestnut orbs. "There is. Just because you can't see your goodness doesn't mean its not there." Tears brimmed in her azure eyes. "I'm sorry, I should have never…."
"No, don't apologize for anything." The fiend tossed his head truculently, his eyes belligerent. His fingers lovingly grazed against her snow kissed skin. "You are innocent in this. If I had never taken you to the Dark Castle, if I had never gotten this power…."
Grasping his hands, the beauty held them close. "We can't change the past, Rum. We need to look forward to the future."
"And what is the future?" The fiend queried in a whisper. "No one can cross the town line. We're all stuck here with who we really are or damned to falsehoods and blankness. I did that. I need to pay."
"Not this way." Her breath came out in a tortured whisper. "I can't lose you, Rum. I won't. Life isn't worth the living if I don't have you. If this is what you truly want then I'll cross with you."
Amazed, he shook his head fiercely. "No, I won't subject you to that. You've lost your memory once. I could not impugn that upon you again."
"No one controls my fate but me." She parried strongly, her voice cracked. "Do you know how hard my heart would break to see you everyday, and not be able to hold you or press your lips against mine? Too look you in the eyes and have not a glimmer of recognition of the man I once loved? That would truly kill me."
His lips quivered tremulously, his body backing to the line. Love for her flooded his heart, but h couldn't bear the thought of hurting her again. "Belle please, I must…."
"Together." Her feet moved with his, guided by her ardor for him.
And in an instant they had crossed. Magic warped across the duo, barreling over them in a pernicious wave of evil. Malicious power clawed at their hearts to taint and mold and twist into the opposite of whom they were. Talons of magic carved and dug into their brains to whisper false memories.
For a moment their body jerked and undulated, subject to the power then all quieted. The only sound about them was the snow falling in the whispering hush.
Hand in hand, both looked to one another.
"Rum?"
"Belle?"
They called one another names simultaneously, tentatively.
Rumpelstiltskin looked about, his eyes scanning the snowy land for any difference. "The curse…."
"Rum the curse." Belle grabbed his arm happily.
He blinked in amazement. "I know Belle."
"No, look!" She prompted, pointing to the barrier behind them.
Curiously the Dark One followed her finger though he need not have have. The change was as obvious as his gray-gold skin in the old world. Lines of bright purple cracked against the barrier in long striations. The lines looked akin to cracks upon an eggshells about to spill the contents of its carapace. A swirling mass of colors like prisms caught in a soap bubble stirred dizzyingly. The lines of lilac grew bigger running in an arch above them and the trees.
Both looking up, they followed the cracks as far as they would go till the snow began to fall once more. Purple snow.
"The curse." The fiend awed aloud. "The barrier."
Smiling, the brown haired beauty clutched his hands. "True love."
"True love." He repeated slowly as though the words were foreign upon his tongue.
Surely then there was no question in any world, in the face of the darkest curse, true love, even from a angel to a beast was stronger than all the foulness the evil could conjure.
Turning to the beauty, the Dark One stared with all the love in his soul towards his Belle. How many words of love did he wish to speak? How many utterance of passion lay locked behind his heart. "You're in no conduction to be out here." He blurted suddenly, his mind in jumbles. Wrapping her in his arms, her pressed the warmth of his body to her. "Let me take you home." He whispered lovingly. "Our home."
"But your son…." Her words flagged as he pointed to the way out of town.
A smile that could have melted the snow from the barren lips donned his face. "One day will not change anything. Besides, when I find my boy, I'd like him to greet his new mother."
Though the path was open and a new adventure lay before him, to have the woman he loved in his arms, knowing she loved even his brute side burned away all other thoughts to ash. First he would find the nearest church to wed them, and then he would make his family whole once more.
Whatever came after that, well, would have to wait.
~8~8~
A/N: One more chapter to go lovelies! Are you ready for the end of this story, and the beginning of S3?