AN: Hello again everyone! Thank you SO VERY MUCH for your support, comments, reviews, follows, ect, it thrills me to NO END how much everyone has enjoyed this lil' fic. Well, I say 'lil'. Har. I wanted to give a huge thank you for everyone that mentioned that they enjoyed the lore changes I made, particularly with Ariel's father and Hades and all the fun mysteries that go along with that. You can ask my editor about how insanely nervous I was about posting the previous chapter. I believe most of my texts were: "I'VE RUINED EVERYTHING. THIS IS STUPID. THEY'RE GOING TO HATE IT. I CAN'T DO IT." Hahaha, so I was so delighted when you guys were so kind to me and rolled with my punches!
By the by, for all of you that enjoyed Calypso's accent, you'll once more, be thanking my editor! While I wrote the base dialogue, it was my amazing editor that jazzed up her speaking pattern and accent, and she was endlessly happy at the reviews that mentioned what a good job she did (not I, haha, I have NO ear for accents), so, from us both, thank you all for enjoy! Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this chapter as well! Yes, many anachronistic little items are mentioned in this chapter. I hope by now we're all cool about that in this particular fanfiction. I think I've worked hard enough to earn SOME gags by now, hahaha.
Thank you again for reading!
A pause. A short breath. It wouldn't be long now before he asked. Tiana merely drew in a deep breath herself as she gave a brief fluttering of her eyes to summon all her willpower to not smack Eugene upside his head and demand to know what had really happened in Eric's bathing house. Why she was, breathlessly and suddenly, dragged to a stranger's side, Eugene desperate and covered in blood and please, Tiana, please, you gotta help me, please, help him! And how, for whatever reason, now she was expected to have all the answers to the mess she had stumbled into.
"Is...he awake yet?" Eugene tested. It was both feet into the river or nothing with Eugene Fitzherbert. Tiana would swear this over the Bible. His little toe was not required for most cases, if he didn't already cut in off in some outrageous drinking game years ago. He wouldn't explain the blood. He offered no answers himself, but humm'd and hermm'd every few minutes, clearly desperate for Tiana to throw him a bone, as if she was the one keep him on edge!
"Tiana?" Eugene asked again.
And again.
So, here they were, Eugene and Tiana, with her tearing apart Eric's very expensive bath towels, methodically moving her hands to check the breathing of the man before her. Adam. That was his name. Eugene only said it seventeen times in the past minute.
How this Adam person and Eugene ended up squaring off together, Tiana couldn't say. They looked nothing alike and for all the roguish company Eugene tended to keep, this man certainly seemed separate from that crowd. While Eugene was all blown-out brown eyes and I'm-Thin-as-a-Beanpole-But-I-Occasionally-Convince-Women-That-It's- Muscle, Adam was definitely royalty. Those features, even beneath his moon-pale skin, had to be blue blood. Tiana was half surprised that these clothes weren't covered in blue instead of red. She had met enough of Naveen's glittering family to not point-blank admit that, yes, often times the wealthy also got the lion's share of the pretty genes. What was it about royal families and being so good looking? Regular nutritious diets? She didn't want to be so bold as to call it unfair. That wasn't right to think God made anything to be unfair...but, really. Really.
The more she spent looking, the more she kept wondering about it all. Even if she wouldn't exactly call Adam her type. He was handsome, she supposed, if one liked that whole I've-Clearly-Never-Shaved-My-Own-Face-Without-Assistance-look, as, wow, Tiana marveled at the whole sported get-up, as Adam had so much hair—tattered remains of auburn sideburns and long strands about his face, that her daddy would've had a fit to see him in the streets...
"Is he awake yet?"
Oh, Eugene, Tiana muttered under her breath. He'd started up once more.
"I don't know, Eugene. You're being very loud."
"How do you know what to do?" Eugene questioned, his dark eyes drilling into the woman beside him. It had only been minutes since Tiana had shaken him awake but Eugene couldn't help but feel anxious as to why Adam wasn't awake yet, why he wasn't talking yet, why this wasn't working yet. "How do you know what you're doing is even doing what it's supposed to do?"
"You're asking a lot of questions while I'm trying to concentrate," Tiana returned sternly.
"But. he, uh, he's gonna be okay?"
Tiana looked at him teasingly. Despite the blood, dried by the time she had arrived, the wounds over Adam's head weren't so bad. Sure, they looked pretty bad to anyone caught off guard, but Tiana had seen worse in her very own kitchens when boiling oil was involved. Whatever had happened, she had never seen Eugene break that aloof, cheerful expression of his. It made for any easy friendship with Naveen. They were all too happy to play their pranks all day long. But what was this? What had made Eugene Fitzherbert this upset? There definitely was more than some "pirate scouting gone wrong", as Eugene had originally told her.
"You sound awful concerned, Eugene."
Eugene sunk his shoulders. His impatience was getting the better of him, and he knew it. However hard he tried to remember, no matter what he pushed aside for basic first aid, he always ended up in the same place: Rapunzel's magic, light and beautiful and endless, coiling around a broken bone or spit wound, and within moments, the horrifying ordeal would be over. He didn't want to admit how much of a luxury it was to not have to think about the consequences outside of Corona. The island was just too comfortable with Rapunzel taking care of, well, just about everything. It was a golden, peaceful place.
And...it was a dangerous mindset to keep without, occasionally, wondering how the outside world faired. That magic couldn't fix everything. Eugene struggled to remember that...sometimes, feeling helpless was part of the process of waiting for better news. Helplessness, Eugene thought, picking the word from his thoughts and attempting to figuratively drown it in the mouth of the fountain fish. He hadn't felt that kind of skin-revolting shame in years. Since the crown. Since Rapunzel. Since Gothel had tied her up and dragged her down a staircase...Eugene closed his eyes. He had taken to staring at Adam again, and he had trouble staring at Adam's face for too long, even if he awaited signs of life.
That face. It was near the same one that had stared at him under the beams of an old cellar door, a face much like that vile Gothel herself, a face that Eugene sometimes still had nightmares about, a face that Rapunzel rarely, very rarely, accidentally slipped, called "mother", and the look of horror that spread through her entire body, a horror that Eugene couldn't stop, couldn't take away, a face that easily darkened and easily demanded, a face that broke all her process of healing...
A face that said: I dare you to take this from me.
"It's just…" Eugene broke his silence with a heavy tone. "With Rapunzel, these things don't take this long. Hell, they hardly ever even happen."
Tiana studied the thief's face with a guarded look of her own. "And that's another thing: why, exactly, haven't you run off to get Rapunzel?"
A pause. Tiana wondered if perhaps her tongue was a little too sharp for her own good.
"I don't run off to get-" Eugene began starkly. He sounded a little offended. Then, he lightened. "Okay, fine. I usually run off to get Rapunzel. Fine. Look, things got really weird last night and I don't want her involved."
"Yet, here I am." Tiana motioned to the bandages all around them, wet, bloodied things, and then to Adam's head, promptly placed in her lap. "Wouldn't you consider this 'involved'?"
"You were a complete accident! What were you even doing here anyway?"
"This is a bathhouse, Eugene. What do you think I was planning to do in here?"
"I'm serious. Where did you learn to dress wounds?"
Tiana allowed her weight to shift back. She listed onto her knees, fingers still lightly holding the pressure to both sides of Adam's head. She blew out a quick rush of air to drive back the sweat daring to snake its way down her brow. "I learned how to do almost everything all on my own. This just looks impressive. Besides, you asked me to help."
"Yeah, of course," Eugene returned briskly, "And how could I not? When I woke up you had already fixed him a hell'vua lot better than I did! I couldn't just let you walk away!"
She sniffed. Fluttered her eyes again. "Okay. Tell me why these wounds match those of a internal blunt force trauma and not external?"
Eugene continued to stare at her in complete bewilderment. "What war did you serve in at the age of six?!"
At this, Tiana offered only a slight roll of her dark eyes. Really, her terminology wasn't all that impressive. Anyone could read a basic first aid manual. And then, maybe a little more as she had, stolen into libraries, hungry to understand the true effect those finals moments truly had before the Good Lord had separated her from her daddy on this earth for the final time…
"If you can't handle the wait…" Tiana lingered her voice. She could avoid questions, too. Their conversation has taken on twice its hushed tone in the echoing walls of the bathing house.
At this, Eugene could only give aggravated snort. "I can handle the wait! What I can't handle is- is-" he looked back at Adam and winced. "All this blood, and his attitude, and- all this magical crap that's been happening!"
Tiana glanced at Eugene in disbelief. "His attitude?" Magic? She thought.
Eugene placed his hands over his mouth and pulled down hard at the skin there, trying to save the handful of seconds he had to choose his next words, and chose them wisely. "You don't want to know, Tiana. You really don't. All you need to know? You just saved his life."
Tiana knitted her eyebrows, clearly uncomfortable. She returned to stare at the man. She then looked back at Eugene, that worn look on his face, the blood still dark over his vest. She could feel a lump rise in her throat over a stranger she didn't know, her mind turning over to a different time and place, where she wished someone might've said that to her, until she had to put that pain down herself, like a family pet, rabid in the streets. "Please don't say that."
"But you did."
"I'm just tryin' my best, okay? You asked me. I saw the blood. So I did what I could. I've never had magic and I'm not a doctor. I'm a chef. If you're convinced I saved him, fine, but I want answers, Eugene Fitzherbert, and I am not leaving until I get them."
Eugene seemed to crumple at this. He pulled at his own face, hair, lips, before finally deciding on his last, and only, hope. "Okay. You deserve to know. Just." He bit his lip. "Please...don't say anything. Not to anyone. Yes, not even Rapunzel. Especially not Rapunzel." He squeezed his eyes shut, hard, and then opened them again to take in her full gaze. "At least not yet. I still gotta talk to him. I need to know what he wants to do. Now that the horns are gone and all."
Tiana blinked, hard. "Excuse me? Did you just say..?"
"Horns?" Eugene sighed. "Yeah...it's….it's a long story." He only leaned closer and began, in long, breathless whispers, everything he possibly knew about the stranger in her lap, why Eric's bathhouse was covered in his blood, and that wild, inexhaustible look that haunted Eugene's eyes—and Tiana felt herself pulled in deeper than she could have imagined a midnight bath would ever get her.
Eugene wasn't sure what surprised him more: that Tiana seemed more than reasonable about all the madness he had just told her-or that she actually was up for a rational debate about it. He had told her everything he could possibly imagine. The pirate episode. The bits and pieces he had gathered about Belle and Adam before they had arrived at Corona. How Belle had fought with Rapunzel, two elements that clashed together in a back bedroom. What ragged little Adam would say about his own past. That this curse was gone once upon a time. That he didn't seem to know why or how it was happening again. That, after the horns, he seemed to be dying.
Dying, there along that beach. And forgetting. He had trouble articulating basic things—important things, like remembering Eugene's name or why he had even gone alone to that beach at all.
Eugene couldn't bring himself to explain the final part: that dark, terrible voice that had twisted his present into Adam's past. He couldn't help but turn the mystery over and over again inside his head. It was impossible to not think about. Why did it happen? Was the curse widening its grip? Could it take other people down with it? Why there? Why him?
Why Adam's father?
Eugene felt a cold finger dance down his spine at the next question that burned into his mind:
Rapunzel. What did this mean for Rapunzel?
Eugene resisted his desperate need to curl into a ball along the floor.
Everything Eugene had fought for, everything he knew was right in his heart- that Adam was a good person and Belle was just as scared as he was and that they deserved a chance to fight whatever the hell was going on...for just a moment, Eugene felt afraid for his own life. It was a selfish, tightening fear that made the thief's jaw ache in spite. What if it was better to just walk away? The unnerving question asked him, a whisper that he couldn't push away. What if Rapunzel was right…?
If Tiana had any idea about her friend's internal moral debate, she didn't seem terribly interested. She only inched forward, closer and closer to Eugene, her eyes bright, her mouth slightly opened, as if she could drink in the rest of the unspoken words between them.
"So, this curse, it's killin' him?" She curved her vowels in hushed, longer exaggeration, matching the wide stare of those huge eyes, and how her dimples seemed to twinkle in her cheeks.
Eugene leapt for the swiftness of Tiana's rationality. He clung to it. He was so sick of being alone. He was tired, too. Beyond his own wit's end, really. The Snuggly Duckling was a lifetime away and, even worse, the real threat of a pirate attack, and Adam, Adam still hadn't stirred, and he couldn't help but whimper the rest of everything he knew to her, selfish and terrible and needing someone else to sink with. Eugene always knew he couldn't die alone. How Adam managed to separate himself, emotionally, physically, away from the living, Eugene could never do.
"Yes. I think it really is. I think this because, when I saw him before, Tiana, when he was, ya know, a beast, I was scared. Scared out of my mind. But he wasn't bleeding. He wasn't. He was...just fine, I guess? Can you honestly be fine when you're cursed?!" Eugene raised his voice in utter exasperation, then, gave in, his words becoming a low chuckle, humorless and drained. "Blood or no, that isn't even a fifth of how badly he upset Rapunzel."
Tiana merely nodded at this. Her lips pursed in thought. She stared back down at the sleeping man resting over her skirts. "He's...dangerous? In this...form?"
Eugene closed his eyes. "I don't know."
A hand reached out to touch his shoulder. A squeeze. Eugene opened them to see Tiana looking at his warmly. "I...know this may sound strange, Eugene, but I believe you. I…" Here, Tiana struggled to find her voice. "I've dealt with curses before-and animals and…" She stopped. "Naveen and I both are...well, I know he plays the fool, but he's actually very observant. Don't get your hopes too high as what we went through sounds very different than Adam's. But I want you to know that I understand."
"Seriously?" The word slid slowly from Eugene's lips. Tiana was always so extraordinarily put together, busying and dizzyingly grounded and (occasionally) sassy that Eugene had to imagine her words running through his head a second time for her confession to register. "You...understand?"
Another quick nod. Now, Tiana looked at Eugene with a fierceness in her eyes that he could recall seeing so well. "And I believe that you want to protect him."
"See, now I have questions for you. Mainly about your sanity. Because if you're agreeing with me, then sister, now I'm the worried one."
"How about we focus on one thing at a time?" Tiana returned, her tone serious, but her eyes a little lighter.
"Alright." Eugene nodded. He tucked away Tiana's little aside for later. Animals and curses? In America? It had never occurred to him that his friends could equally run into their own madness outside of his own bubble of contentment. His concern and fear for Rapunzel's magic being used against her will felt a little ignorant now. After all, Rapunzel could only heal...and, debatably, bring back the dead. A little. Maybe. If she got there in time. But she wasn't dangerous. She was just powerful in her own way. She wasn't cursed nor could she summon curses.
Magic in this world must be far bigger and far more unusual than Eugene ever might have imagined. Everywhere, too. Like it was inescapable.
"Tell me more about what you saw that night," Tiana prompted. She shifted again, pulling Adam away from her lap to set him gently back along the tiles. She carefully began unweaving her latest set of bandages from around his head, hurrying to replace them with fresh ones.
"God. Alright. So, I saw his, uh, 'animal side', right? And he wasn't bleeding. He mentioned to me before that he was trying to force the curse back. Or. Or something. I think, anyway. Honestly, it's hard to get a straight answer from Adam in general, let alone when he's half-conscious."
"That's called a 'concussion'." Tiana explained gently. She was nearly done now with the bandages and was, strangely, inspecting his eyes. Eugene made a face as she forced open eyelids. It creeped Eugene out.
"Is that, uh, bad?"
"It depends. You said horns came out of his skull?"
Eugene gulped. He tried not to picture what other horrifying creature-like things would threaten Adam's life next if he refused. Claws ripping apart fingernails, horns through an already open wound, fangs to puncture lips..."Yeah."
She grimaced. "Well, we can't move him for a while, then."
A pause. Eugene could only feel that impatient panic rise up once more inside of him. He twisted around to take in the bloodied bath, the destroyed towels. How much did he really accomplish in helping? Had he done anything at all?
"Must be nice to be helpful," Eugene found himself murmuring. He darted his eyes to Tiana's and back again. He gritted his teeth, pushing down resentment. "Am I an idiot, Tiana, for not getting help sooner? What if I had just told you sooner? What if—"
"You can 'what if' yourself all day, Eugene, but I'm here now, and that is what matters."
"I know that you probably wanna tell the others—"
"No," Tiana cut him off harshly. "I really don't."
A pause.
"You don't?"
"No. I don't understand. This feels...wrong. I've always understood magic to be so straightforward. Almost literal. There has to be something we're missing. Like, how big is this curse? Do you know anything about his family? His folks?"
Eugene forced himself to look innocent. He had conjured that image his whole life with ease. Somehow, it seemed to be slipping under Tiana's imperious stare. "What would his folks have to do with anything?"
"I'm just asking. I'm trying to just gather as much information as I can. Y'think they made some kind of deal?
"No…" was all Eugene answered slowly. "He doesn't really talk about his parents much."
"Strange." Tiana countered. She narrowed her eyes down at Adam. "Hiding something, are we?"
Eugene felt his stomach give an uncomfortable twist. "Uh, I don't think it's that. But I agree with you. I think you're onto something. This curse is bigger than just him."
Another lapse of silence. Eugene found himself gathering bits of the clothes to hide the evidence. Draining the blood from Eric's tub. He glanced back to Tiana. "You won't even tell Naveen?"
Tiana blew a small puff of air upwards, scattering her dark hair from its make-shift, pinned up style. Strands of her curls had come undone from behind her ears. "Maybe. If I can't figure this out, first."
"Didn't take you for a mystery kind of gal."
"I've read a few good books in my time. What? You just assumed I only like cook books?" Tiana flashed those dark eyes to Eugene as if to mock him. "Do you even know how to read, Fitzherbert?"
Eugene resisted a smirk. "Not really my thing. But yeah, occasionally."
"You and Naveen. Couldn't sit still if we tied y'all down."
Naveen. Eugene felt a small sharp pain shoot down his neck. He fidgeted with his small pile of clothes. "Speaking of...how do you think he'll take it? If you do tell him?"
"If Adam stays human?" Tiana asked, her tone distracted. "He'll probably want to help."
"And...if Adam doesn't?"
"Oh, Naveen will still want to help. He'll just have to stop his knees from shakin' first."
Eugene gave a short laugh. "Fair. He's pretty terrifying."
At this, Tiana softened her gaze. "Belle…" Was all she said. She twisted a curl behind her left ear in thought.
"Yeah." Was all Eugene could really offer back. "She's the only one brave enough to do this."
Tiana looked at him once more. "What do you mean? You mean you aren't? You're the only one who's managed this so far."
Eugene shook his head. "Blood freaks me out." He began drily. "I drink too much. People say I'm annoying. I'm just the village idiot."
"I don't think that. And I doubt he does, either."
"Eh." Eugene glanced at his hands. "I've known what it's like to not have anything...but I've just rarely felt so helpless." He forced the images that swirled through his mind: Rapunzel's tears and Belle's look of defeat. Adam—saying that he trusted him. "I feel helpless."
"If you are so quick to say I saved his life, then you must know something else." Her dark eyes willed into him, into the weight of her answer. "Well, so did you."
"I just made a split decision and it worked out. But if the curse is killing him then he needs to change...and I just…" Eugene trailed off, unsure of how to tell Tiana the rest.
"But you said that Belle implied that when she first met Adam he was still under the curse." Tiana continued. "But he was still himself- just a prince in disguise. If he changed again he could communicate with us, right? The way he had to have spoken to Belle."
"I'm not so sure. That night in my kingdom, he acted more animal than man. And he said himself that he couldn't remember the change or what he was looking for. Just that he was in pain." Eugene explained, his voice empty.
"In pain, but no blood?" Tiana asked quietly.
"No blood." Eugene answered.
"So...if he changes again, he won't die but…" Tiana couldn't bring herself to say it.
"You have to promise me something, Tiana." Eugene urged, his voice low. "Because we're in serious trouble. If Adam changes again, if he doesn't know who we are...if…" Eugene swallowed roughly. "If he is more beast than man...I…I can't promise that I…"
"Don't go there," Tiana said calmly. "Not yet. We aren't out of options yet."
Belle. Eugene thought. Her shoving him away. Fierce and intelligent.
"Belle would know what to do." Eugene told her. "If only we- if only we could just get to her."
"I know Eugene. I agree, too. We do need Belle."
"Ugh," Eugene groaned. He pulled at his face again. With the clothes collected and the tub drained, there was little else for him to do. He paced once more. Feeling stupid. Feeling slightly insane.
"You know, Eugene," Tiana said suddenly. They had been quiet for some time, with only Eugene's boots to break the silence. "There's a great saying where I'm from. About fire, and a kitchen, and leaving."
He blinked. "You're asking me to leave?"
"I'm telling you to leave. Go. It's late and I'm sure Rapunzel has been wondering where you went."
Eugene felt as if he had been knocked into the past all over again. "And what about you? And him?"
"I'll stay here. Naveen, Eric, and Aladdin are deep in their cards—and probably in their cups. He won't miss me until morning."
He looked toward Adam once more. He hadn't moved, not even a bit. Waiting could only get him so far. He allowed a tired sigh. He did miss Rapunzel. And his bed. And a world where things made sense. He supposed it was too late now to be so sentimental. "...Okay."
Tiana quirked her brow. "Really? No big speech? It was that easy?"
Eugene offered a weary smirk at her. "It was that easy."
"I'll find you again once he's awake. In the morning, I would think." Tiana answered back. "I'm not leaving. I promise."
Eugene only gave one final nod. "Tiana...I—"
"Go, Eugene." Was all she said, before she returned her full attention back to Adam.
And with that, Eugene closed the door to the bathhouse, and was gone.
It was still dark when Adam opened his eyes. Thankfully, it was a far more natural kind of darkness. The long, wide windows that circled Eric's prized bathhouse were opened and glittering with the beads of stars, still and unblinking, as they had been when he had first arrived with Eugene. They offered little light. The glow filled the tub and the tiles in a hazy, silver starlight, and between his own eyes, slowly taking in the room, and its uncanny silence to the dull roar that had been his world before, Adam did not notice that there was a single pair of eyes staring at him with a heated, careful gaze.
"Can you move?" A voice asked him. Adam gave a little jump, turning suddenly to pull away from the unmistakable warmth of another body so close to his own. Strangely, he merely moved into more softness-a little pile of cloth none too far off from where he had laid. "I see that you can." The voice answered its own question, a tad amused. "Adam? Can you hear me?"
Adam blinked. This wasn't a voice to fear. It meant the world had returned as Calypso had said. This meant this voice belonged to… "Tiana?"
A soft exhale met his ears. She moved closer to him. Her hands were steady to take his shoulders. She pulled him near, as if to inspect him, and Adam lacked the time to prepare for her being so close. Even so, he found himself lacking the will to struggle away as he had with sea witch. Tiana was always spoken about with good grace in Belle's lead, and he had always heard that she was a more logical woman than those he usually met in political court. Adam attempted to submit under her touch as she snapped fingers in front of his eyes, shifted around his hair, and, finally, looked at him as if she had found a simple solution to what, Adam could only imagine, would be Eugene's ornate lie as to why he was found a bloodied mess in Eric's home.
"Okay. This is good, this is very good. If you can move, hear me, and see me, then we're better off than I thought." She moved her hands to turn on the fountain, rinsing her hands through the water, before she settled herself back, eye to eye, her eyes forward and alert. "Are you in any pain?"
Adam squirmed uncomfortably under her dark, watchful gaze. It was easy to see this woman had twice the confidence of a more practiced ruler, her every move deliberate and well-planned.
"Tiana?" the man rasped again. While he had been lying unconscious for hours, his timbre suggested otherwise, like he had actually been screaming, and she had merely failed to hear.
"And you're Adam, I'm sure." She reached out to gently shake his hand, unsure of how she should really address a wounded stranger she had only heard whispers of. "The pleasure is mine."
Adam could only stare at her. She was here, alone with him. Eugene was nowhere to be found. He reached up to touch at his hair, the wounds along his head, and found that his fingers brushed along bandages instead. They wrapped around the entirety of his head, forehead as well. "I...I…"
"I, um, took some liberties to help you." Tiana returned, her voice a little nervous. "Hope you don't mind. We'll get you better ones soon."
Again, Adam stared, dumbfounded. Someone is working to save your life, Calypso had told him. Someone like Tiana. Who had...medical knowledge, apparently? Medical knowledge and...what else? What had Eugene said to her? "No...I'm very grateful. I…" He stumbled, consumed by the rawness of his own voice echoing back to him. "Eugene? He's gone, I think?"
"Yes. I told him to get some sleep. He'd been looking after you far longer than I have."
"...I see."
"I understand if you're a little lost. If it helps, I can fill in you on what you've missed."
Adam raised his eyebrows at this. "How long have I been asleep?"
"Two hours, maybe?" Tiana answered. She didn't seem so sure herself. "I haven't really kept a close enough count."
"...Tiana. I want to apologize. I know that you perhaps hoped to not spend your night mending a stranger." Adam replied. "I don't know what it is that Eugene told you, but I…"
"He told me." Tiana said quietly. Their eyes met in the dark, blue and brown, and Tiana held hers strongly to trace his face. Her eyebrows tightened, as did her jaw, as she waited. "I know."
"You know." Adam intoned. It took him a moment to comprehend her words. If he had any remaining blood inside of his body, it fled from his face in that single heart stopping moment. "He told you."
She knows. His heart began to pound. Sweat collected, cold and clammy, over his skin. Rumors like wildfire. How could she sit there and be so calm? She knows. Who else now knows? What has Eugene done?
"Eugene said I saved your life. He said that he wanted me to know the real reason you both were here." Tiana explained quickly. Her eyes dashed around, taking in the only exit, and she seemed ready to move, as if she was already aware of Adam's thoughts to fly out of the bathhouse and ghost into the night. "...I want you to know that I don't regret what I did. I wanted to help."
"...You have saved my life." Adam said, after a long moment, his gaze heavy over her face. He attempted to stand and, again, like a miracle, he could. He no longer felt the world swaying under his feet. Tiana rose with him, returning to be close once more. "You and Eugene."
"And you can stand? I've seen men that could hardly speak after going through the likes of what you have. Is it the curse that makes you so resilient or is it you?"
Adam met her eyes in shock. She wasted no time in getting into the thick of what he desperately wished wasn't true. She spoke about him as if he was more fascinating than terrifying. He shook her question away. "If Eugene has told you, then you know what I am."
"I know what you might become, yes." Tiana returned, as sharp as the edge of a knife to take down Adam's thinly veiled suggestion that she wasn't safe with him. "What you are, however, is human. And someone that matters a great deal to Eugene, Ariel, and to Belle." She looked at him, her dark eyes probing yet overwhelming sincere. "I promise, Adam, I won't tell."
He could hardly believe his ears. This woman, all stranger and unflinching intelligence to his weakened defense that used to put so many off. There was something about Tiana's bright eyes that reminded him of his wife's. The mere connection felt like a new hot pain to turn him breathless without cause. This was all his fault. All Belle had worked so hard to procure and he had ruined it. Slowly but surely the others were finding out. God, what was becoming of him now? Human until the next change? If Eugene felt the fair price of his life was to offer the truth...if he actually took the Goddess's advice... Couldn't he at least protect his wife from his accursed fate?
"Adam?" Tiana asked, her voice suddenly worried. She placed a hand over his arm. "Do you feel cold? That's from the blood loss. You have to tell me what you're feeling. And we should probably get you back to your ship, too. I'll walk you back. Do you have someone else with you? I imagine you don't want me watching over you further."
Question after question. She was terribly rational about this. How? Why?
"...Forgive me." Adam rumbled coarsely. "You've left me quite speechless."
She studied him once more. "I know this is a lot. I can understand that, at least." She swallowed thinly and gave his arm a squeeze. "If anything, I should thank you for being patient with me. Naveen tells me I can be far too invasive but I don't share his hands-off worldview; If I'm getting to know somebody I'm getting to know them. I know what you're going through must seem crazy. I know you don't even know me. That's a fair trade as I don't know you. But that doesn't matter right now. I'll come back later to clean this up. I know how to get blood out of cloth."
She give his arm a faint pull. Soon, they were out of the bathhouse and moving along the darkened paths that led back to the castle. Tiana threw open the latch and iron gate easily as she guided Adam along. She was a slender woman, but her arms and legs did not tremble under force or labor. Adam studied her wordlessly, curious to run into a woman that seemed unbothered by the elements. Even Belle wrinkled her nose at the cold or the summer heat. Still, even the cool of the evening air couldn't earn Tiana's attention; her skin did not even turn to goose-flesh.
Regardless of her body's assuredness, clearly the silence Adam laid between them had disturbed her. Their shadows melted into one along the cherry trail.
"I'll bite." She began suddenly. She kept her eyes facing forward, her neck straight and tall. "You find it odd that a woman knows so much about medicine?"
Adam averted his own eyes. The truth was he did find it odd but that never prompted him to rightfully declare it so. "I never would dare to question."
At this, Tiana gave a little laugh. "Spare me my pride. I wasn't born some snooty princess; I was raised in New Orleans. A far poorer world from here. And, my daddy, he taught me everything his daddy taught him."
"Your father was a doctor?"
"No," Tiana said softly. "He was a cook. Then a soldier." She took a short breath. "Then, he died."
That same look of grief that had settled over Jasmine's features lingered over Tiana's in the dim moonlight. If this was his first common meeting with Tiana, Adam felt he could have tried harder in his attempts at understanding, but between the pounding of the sea, being dragged by Eugene, and being revived by Tiana all in one night, Adam found he lacked the emotional integrity.
"A war?" Adam struggled to comprehend the sheer idea of being willed to war. His father caused and settled many over his lands and was not loved the better over any of them. He tried to imagine his father, regal and ringed and posh, covered in chain mail, he placed Phoebus's broadsword at his hip for good measure, and Adam found himself all the more unable to relate. His father was a coward that would have never fought for his people. Chivalry must have passed them both over in the family line, Adam couldn't help but to think. The castle lacked weapons as well as a war room. Of Eric's teachings and naval intrigue, Adam was lost and defeated. To laugh at the image of his father was to laugh at himself.
To comprehend Tiana's grief, Adam only offered a soft sound from the back of his throat. A pathetic offering to give from his pathetic upbringing.
"Yes." Tiana replied curtly. She steeled her shoulders. "We never got his body back from the front lines." She lowered her voice into a quiet whisper. "It took me years to really believe he wasn't coming home." She walked a little faster, as if trying to outrun her shadow. "My mamma didn't think it right; my...obsession with understanding what had happened to him. That it was in bad taste for a young lady but I had to know." Her eyes brightened again. "I had to know what had taken his life."
Adam's lips twitched faintly. "You...went to war yourself?" His tone must have conveyed the incredulity in his question. The moon was higher in the night sky and the sea to the west looked deceivingly motionless. They were nearly at the docks.
"No," Tiana answered again, but her voice sounded as if she found his response a little funny over the morose subject. "I just picked up every book I could find, books with medical pictures and the ways that soldiers die in war. And...I just learned."
"You are very learned." Adam answered her in turn. "Belle tells me you run your own restaurant as well. To think, you're also a nurse. You certainly prove more useful in battle than I."
"Oh?" Tiana returned. "You struck me as an Aladdin type. All ready to fight a pirate?"
He lacked enough warmth and blood to blush. "I wish to help if I can. If I can...stay as I am."
The curse. He did not wish to speak of it any more tonight and only hoped that Tiana might understand this. He now only wished to be alone. To write Belle a thousand more letters. To lay in bed and pretend to hear her voice…
"I never really learned any more about what killed my daddy. I don't know if it was a bullet entry wound or a knife. Or maybe mustard gas." Tiana finished. They were outside of his ship's dock. Tiana had turned to place her body between Adam and the edge of the sea, taking the brunt of the wind along her back. "But I like to think I was able to make him proud of everything I found in return. To lose my daddy taught me that I might be able to save someone else's."
Adam met her eyes, tired and thankful and unable to find the words for such a noble cause.
"Thank you, Tiana. This will not be the end of our conversation, I assure you. But I wish to lie down again." He gave a sigh at the idea of the morning. Of Eugene, and what else there was to do, if anything,to ease the curse for the remaining days.
She didn't hug him, as Ariel might, nor make some insecure comment to hide the pain with humor as Eugene would have. Instead, Tiana only offered him a soft, understanding smile. "Your secret is safe with me." It may have been a trick of the light, but Adam swore that she may have honestly winked at him. "You're a good listener, you know that?" She squeezed his arm again and stepped back. "Stay warm."
"You as well," Adam answered in kind. "Thank you...I owe you—"
"Inside," Tiana reminded him sternly, but her eyes were playful. "You can thank me more tomorrow."
"Tomorrow, then." Adam agreed, before he turned, finally, into the safety of his ship.
"Rapunzel?" Eugene tested. He knew it to be a lost cause. It was late. Super late. So late that the night might as well be talked about as the morning that it was.
She'd be asleep. That's why she wasn't answering, obviously. She was asleep. Everyone was asleep. Even Jasmine's big large huge giant ridiculous tiger was asleep, and stayed asleep, even when Eugene had tripped over it, striking it straight in the ribs while it slept outside her guest room door, and still it didn't move. What a life, right? If only he could be so immovable.
Eric and Ariel were nowhere to be seen either through the halls. Who knows at what reasonable hour they had decided to go to bed. He had found Naveen and Aladdin asleep at their playing table. He got a bit of a laugh at seeing those two still fighting in their sleep. Naveen had pushed Aladdin's face away from him from across the table, Naveen's palm now used as a makeshift pillow for Aladdin, while Aladdin had clearly attempted to kick the chair out from under Naveen, as the both of them threatened to roll onto the floor at their odd angles. Eugene had half a mind to finish the job and dump the both of them onto the floor, get a good laugh at the looks on their faces, but decided against it.
He was, after all, still covered in blood, and that would take more explaining, explaining of the explaining that he still couldn't really explain, and he was so done with talking.
Eugene could damn near feel the silence slide into the room as he nudged open the door. The light thrown from the candles along the hallway dimly awoke the sleeping chambers. Rapunzel didn't stir. It could pick out the soft curve of her hip along the bed, one leg out, searching for the sheets she had kicked away in her sleep. His heart calmed just a little to see her, still there. Of course she still was. What was there to happen all safe in Eric's paranoid castle of Fort Knox? Sure, it was weird to be away from Corona, but Eugene had to give it a rest at some point.
Plush rugs covered the cold title of the ancient castle. A large window was closed, locked, with the curtains down, but even with the effort made to block out the moon, it showed its face back at Eugene, wavering alone above the sea. So much sea. And salt. And wind. Eugene ran his hands over his face and hair, feeling the sand cemented into his skin. He should have actually used the bathhouse for its intended purpose-but no, he decided to march himself to his guestroom, covered in dirt and blood, and pretend that everything was perfectly normal.
Eh, if he could summon the brainpower to think of it, Eugene was sure he had staggered into Rapunzel's arms in far worse of conditions.
He made his way into the room, closing the door, carefully took off his boots and placed them by the wool rug near the fireplace. The guest room they had been placed in was square and wide. Corona was made up of triangles and circles. The strange shape of the room, of sleeping somewhere foreign, bothered him a little. He shrugged off his vest, undershirt, shirt, pants, and half-heartedly tried to wash himself up at the sink through the connected bathroom. It was a lost cause. What he got off of his skin merely transferred to more of Eric's fluffy towels and that made Eugene feel six times worse. Was Tiana right in not telling anyone else? What was he even doing, sneaking around Eric's own castle when the guy was clearly choking on the anticipation of a pirate raid?
When Rapunzel's mom had mentioned that many of the situation Eugene got himself into were undoubtedly of his own making, Eugene found himself suddenly unable to argue back.
He gave a restless shrug to no one, clearing the conversation he made to himself in his own mind, and slumped onto the bed. With that large of a movement, Eugene found himself suddenly sunk low into the mattress, and then bump upwards again, as the once solid surface now moved and floated his body in a weird, weightless way.
"Whoa, whoa, what?" He sputtered, dragging himself up in surprise. From the other side of the watery bed, he heard his wife give a little sleepy giggle.
"'Ugene?"
"Uh, hi. Why is our bed moving?"
"Water."
"Water." Eugene deadpanned.
"It's a waterbed, silly." Rapunzel finished. She turned slowly over to stare at him. Her cropped hair clung to the right side of her face from how she slept. She gave him a droll smile. "Eric's idea. He wanted them in all the guest rooms but this is the prototype."
"Why did we get the test bed? That's just plain rude."
"I think he thought we'd like it."
"That's stupid. A bed made of water is stupid. Eric is stupid."
"I think it's great. I jumped on it for fifteen minutes straight and there was no need to flip it over." Rapunzel defended.
"Baby, I don't think a bed's ability to be jumped on qualifies it as a good bed."
She made a cute sound of disgust. "I beg to differ."
"I beg to your differ," Eugene remarked back. He leapt across the bed and caged her inside of his arms, tickling her mercilessly. However, his plan of attack was harder to manage than he had thought; the bed caved inwards towards its middle, sucking Eugene down and forcing his grip over his wife to fall away from her and more towards the bed now drowning him due to their combined weight.
"UGH I AM SO SICK OF THE SEA." Eugene cried out as he clawed his way from the water bed's middle. He placed his feet to the floor, straightened his back, and threw himself down onto the bed, this time extra hard, so that it made Rapunzel bounce from the force, and her laughter buzzed down his spine like a shot of whiskey.
She giggled again and wrapped her arms around his waist. She had settled her face into the groove of his shoulder, curled into his neck. She gave a small sniff. Eugene felt the warmth of her breath moisten his skin. "Did you go diving?"
He stiffened. Too late still, she felt him stiffen. "Uh. Sort've."
"...For the shells I asked for?" Rapunzel asked. Her voice was soft. It already sounded disappointed.
"Um. I ran into some trouble along the beach." Eugene said quietly. He closed his eyes resist looking into her large green eyes. There'll be the death of his lies.
Her arms tightened around him, like he had told her the climax of a ghost story, and she was spooked. "What kind of trouble?"
A heartbeat. A heartbeat. What did it really matter now. She could feel his heart. Hell, she had his heart under the palms of her hands. "...Adam."
Rapunzel froze. Her grip over Eugene loosened. "Oh."
Oh, Eugene flinched at that tiny, painful sound. "Rapunzel, listen…" He reached around in the darkness for her hand, and when he found it, and brought it to his lips. "It's not what you think, okay?"
Rapunzel did not just move her hand away from his mouth-she ripped it so hard away that her nails nearly cut his bottom lip. "What I think?" Wrong thing to say. Shit. Shit.
Eugene faltered back. He turned, bouncing their weight smoothly over the bed, and forced himself to pull in a breath. He was so tired. He didn't want to have this conversation right now. He knew it was just another selfish flash of desire. He did his best to not center his wants when Rapunzel might need him the most. Since Belle and Adam's departure from Corona, things had settled, for the most part. Now, the pair just weren't spoken of. But lately, lately Rapunzel's dreams had been more violent than usual. Her panic attacks more frequent. It was starting over. Back to the beginning of their first few nights spent back in her parent's kingdom. Back to when she'd have trouble referring to Gothel as 'Gothel' and her real mother as 'mother' and not Mother as mother.
There was one terrible night from way back when, when she accidentally called her real mother 'Gothel' straight to her face, (slip of the tongue, her father tried to rationalize to his daughter upon seeing Rapunzel's instant and terrified expression) while the look of absolute hurt across Her Majesty's face was enough to crush Eugene alone in his guilt and he wasn't even related.
Rapunzel pulled into herself. She was a tiny figure in the darkness. "What do you know about what I think," she murmured angrily. Her knees balled up to her chest.
Eugene sighed, hot and a little miffed himself. His own patience was draining fast. "Well," he began distinctly, "I would know more about exactly what you think if you were willing to talk to me about it,"
"About him."
"About them," Eugene corrected.
She breathed out slowly and closed her eyes.
"Eugene," She finally said, her face turned away, and her shoulders hunched. "I'm sorry."
"And—!" He blinked. Her apology had caught him entirely off guard. He blinked again.
A pause.
"...Sorry I assumed the worse out of you." He finally relented to her. "That was wrong of me. I know you're—you're just scared. I know." He sighed deeply and rubbed at the back of his neck. "I've had a rough night, too."
"…I don't want to be afraid anymore." Rapunzel whispered. Her eyes were open again in the darkness, green and silver as she stared out the window before them. "...I miss Belle."
Eugene allowed himself to relax, just a little. He scooted closer and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "...I think we need her, Rapunzel."
Those big eyes were suddenly focused entirely on him. "What do you mean?" Then, they blinked, and Eugene had to face the slow, careful realization as Rapunzel traced for his clothes in the shadows, dirty and bloodied. "...Are you hurt?!" She squeaked in fear. She was suddenly on him—hands wild and frenzied, curled into his chest, and they both fall back upon the bed. Eugene wasn't sure why he burst into laughter. She wasn't having any of it, however. She curled her little fists and gently beat at his sides. "This. Isn't. Funny. Eugene!"
He caught her hands and settled her to his chest. The waterbed wiggled distractingly around their fight. "Can't help it. You're just so cute."
She crossed her hands over her chest. "So it's not your blood."
"No." Eugene told the ceiling, his chin nestled into the crown of her head. "It's Adam's."
Another short breath. "I was right, then. It's exactly what I thought it might be." Her voice took on a hard, guarded edge. "He's changing. He's changing again and it's getting worse."
At this, Eugene had little to defend. "He's still human. This was just a mishap. I think it's more complicated than that. But he's here right now, Rapunzel, with the rest of Eric's gathering, and we can't spend our time ignoring that."
She made a small moaning sound and hid her face into his side. "...I'm a terrible person."
"Hey," Eugene murmured. "Come on. Don't say that."
"Eric has every right for him to be here. I'm…" Rapunzel pulled into another short breath. Eugene could only hope she wasn't going into another breathing episode. That was three weeks ago. She closed her eyes once more. It was so hard to not picture his face, no matter what she tried, and those damning eyes he had given her when she had denounced him from her kingdom, how sick she felt inside, how sickening and cruel it was that fate had forced her to do what was right—and how what was right was clearly hurting a man that Eugene, for whatever reason, really came to care for. "…terrible."
"Baby," Eugene whispered. Her head close to his chest, Rapunzel felt his voice vibrate through her, and it was strangely calming. "I'm not asking you to spend hours upon hours with him. But you can't hide from him forever, okay? He's..he's just about scared of you as you are of him. Hell, you changed him back at his very worst. Ya think he'd actually request your help." Eugene gave a dark laugh that Rapunzel did not share in. "Uh...but he didn't, just to let you know.
"You talked to him about me?"
"No, not really." Eugene confessed. "But...I can just tell. He's nervous. He's...basically a walking aneurysm. Even when he isn't, you know, a monster."
"...Did you see him again?" Rapunzel asked, her voice low, as if asking for a terrible secret. At first, Eugene wasn't entirely sure at what she meant, but then he found her meaning.
"No, Rapunzel. He hasn't changed. Not entirely."
"...Entirely?" She picked at the word. Of course she would.
"...Baby," Eugene tried to hold her a little closer. "I think this curse is killing him. That's what I discovered tonight. That's why he needed my help. He's better now. He's gonna be okay."
"So...so the blood was…" her voice cracked. He felt Rapunzel still. Then a breath. Another. Another. Faster. Faster. Too fast. Too fast, she was breathing too fast and—
"I can't cure him," Rapunzel murmured thickly. Her throat sounded tight and hoarse, already on the verge of tears. "I can't, Eugene, I can't, I can't."
"Shhh." He pulled her close again to try to ease her breathing. "I know, baby. We know that. That's not what I'm asking."
"I don't want him to die, Eugene," Rapunzel whispered, her voice a warble of words that melted into his skin. Tears, too. "I don't, I know what I said and what I did and I know Belle hates me but I don't…"
"She doesn't hate you, honey."
"She won't write to me!"
"Maybe she's been busy."
A sniffle. "Is she coming here, too?"
"...I hope so, baby. I really do."
"Is...he all alone right now?"
Eugene swallowed. It was hard to say. Was Tiana still with him? Did Adam come to Denmark with anyone at all? He couldn't have come all alone, a dying man with a dying man's wish, could he? He settled for what he hoped was true. "He's resting right now. He's not alone."
"...Ariel really seems to like him."
Eugene blinked into the dark at the turn in conversation. He rolled with it. Whatever seemed to calm her down. "Yeah? Is that what your letter said?"
At this, Rapunzel merely quieted. She was so quiet in fact that Eugene wondered if she had fallen back asleep. "Blondie? Still with me?"
"Sorry. Um. Ariel talked with me about him, a little, before she went to bed. She was so excited he was here. I..I didn't understand. But she was so excited. She said that Adam is really funny."
At this, Eugene gave his own snicker. "Not exactly the word I'd use, but sure, I think I get it."
"And...Jasmine met him, too."
"Jeez. Guy gets around, doesn't he?"
"She says that he's awkward."
"Bingo." Eugene pressed a grin into her hair.
"...But nice."
"Eh. Fair. I think it's a lady thing. I think he's just more comfortable with women."
Another silence. Rapunzel listened to her husband simply breathing. His heart rate starting to slow towards sleep. "Eugene?"
"Mhm."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Huh?"
"About Adam."
"What do you mean?"
Another breath. Rapunzel shut her eyes. She didn't want to see it. She didn't want to admit it. But there was something in Adam. Something in his shyness and his timid smiles he had once given her from a distance. Something painful and very afraid inside those eyes. A look only Rapunzel could understand. Something that she refused to seek. She wanted it all gone. In the only way she knew how.
"Did something bad happen to Adam? Like." She forced the next words. "Like what Gothel did to me."
Eugene only pulled Rapunzel closer. She could feel his heart give a little skip. His voice was low and drowsy. "Yeah, baby. I think so."
Rapunzel only curled into him more. Even long after Eugene had drifted to sleep, Rapunzel continued to stare out the window, into the dark of the sea before her. She felt cold. Her flesh turned to goose skin and no matter how she pressed herself into Eugene, she only felt colder. She closed her eyes once more, her own thoughts spinning around her. Terrible. Why I am such a terrible person? Because I'm afraid?
...When will I stop finally being afraid?
AN: THE PEOPLE WANT BELLE, THE CHARACTERS WANT BELLE, SO WHO ARE WE GETTING NEXT? HADES. Okay, whoa, whoa, I'm kidding I'm totally kidding, it's Belle. Belle. Belle's next. Omg, please, please don't hurt me fandom, hahaha!