Chapter Twenty-Five: Raging Tears

There was a knock at the door a few months later. I hadn't seen Rumpel since the day I snuck in that one time. Yet, at my door was a girl, brokenhearted and tears pouring down her face.

"Whoa," I said. "What's wrong? Come in." I dragged her by force into the house where Morraine was out with the baby. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was Belle. This was the girl Rumpel had fallen for.

"You're Belle, aren't you?" I asked, and she nodded, throwing herself at me. She really was helpless at the moment. As she cried I sensed that Rumpelstiltskin had done something...something very awful.

She handed me a letter, and I was afraid to read it in front of her, but something inside of me told me that this letter was important. Perhaps it would explain everything. With Belle crying on me, completely helpless and broken, I read the letter:

SIG now. Maria...I cannot explain myself for this, but by God if you don't come...I don't know what I will do. I fell again...I felt it, but...SHE ruined it. She completely ruined...

The rest was splattered with ink as if he couldn't write or tears smeared the writing. At the bottom I caught something though...

My life has been nothing but corruption and hate. Maria...

I knew that I would understand if I left, if I went to him. I waited for Morraine to come back though. Belle could not be left alone, not like this.

"Dear...come on, you can tell me. Rumpelstiltskin," I urged her.

"He threw me out. He just...he wouldn't believe me...I love him...I love him so much I just-what won't he-we-" she sobbed through endless waterfalls of tears.

Rumpelstiltskin, his life was tragic. It began with the Dark One. He had to give me up and then Bae... Then someone like Belle, her good intentions, he didn't believe in that anymore. Happily ever after and love didn't exist for him...at least not with the Evil Queen around. My take on this, he threw her out because he thought the Evil Queen got to her somehow because he just couldn't accept love anymore. I was the only one who could get through to him, and now both of them were miserable.

Tears fell from my own face. The thoughts raced through my mind. If the curse was to be unleashed as he said, and I was protected, that meant I could go anywhere I wanted; I wouldn't even matter in the world the queen would create. Bae wasn't here, so he was protected too. Somewhere...

I could influence things perhaps, but Rumpel and Belle were still going to be there. Rumpel would remember everything and she would remember probably nothing. But he will know, and that is far far worse I would think. To be sucked into such a thing: a knowledge that no one else will have. Power to be sure, but when everyone else regained memory...she'll remember feeling like this.

"Belle," I said slowly, knowing exactly what she had to hear. "Rumpelstiltskin...he loves you. I can see that, I know it's there. His life contradicts him to believe in it though. He cannot trust himself. Love is something he cannot accept. He needs time..."

I sniffled.

"I promise that he will come around and that he will regret everything he's just done to you. He'll want you back and I pray you accept him. He needs you, but he also needs a few chances."

"H-how do you know that?" she asked through her tears. Her entire body shook with a violence I knew of only too well. I sighed, more tears coming from my eyes.

"Because at one point, he and I...we were together. And if that wasn't love I don't know what is."

"What happened?"

"That's a long tale my dear, but all you need to know is, we fell deeply but we were forced apart and when our son left, he couldn't bear it. He got worse and worse, and his magic, that power, it consumed him. It's all he really has..."

"He said he lost you and his son," Belle told me.

"He did lose Bae, that I can say for sure. But me...he lost me in a different way. I left because his powers were uncontrollable. He didn't accept his power as a curse, so...I couldn't break it. I can still calm him, and I'm sorry but I'll have to leave you here..."

Just then, Morraine walked in the house with the baby, looking at me in shock.

"Calm her. I cannot delay any longer," I demanded, heading for the door, grabbing my cloak on the way out. Morraine looked back at me, probably wondering why I was crying.

The place was destroyed, and by God I had never seen anything like it in all my years. Rumpelstiltskin was kneeling behind a leg of the large dinning room table. I already knew he too had been crying. His rage was still within him, I sensed that too.

"Rumpelstiltskin," I had to say his full name and strongly. I knelt beside him, seeing a few cuts from glass most likely, and I forced him upright. Instantly, I kissed him and it was God to be damned if I didn't hold on for minutes at a time. It felt wrong, kissing him when he was clearly in love with someone else, but we were complicated like that. They had grown close, that was obvious enough when she came balling her eyes out. He must have sent her to deliver the message.

I held his lips to mine, feeling the magic's rage as he kissed me in return after a few minutes. I breathed through my nose, pulling him closer to me. He needed this; however, I also had to convince him that Belle was worth it, and that he should be with her, no matter what the cost. Love was always worth the price, and I think we proved that. When we were together, if what we had was not forced apart, I'd still be with him. Bae would be alive, and everything would be all right...

But life is instead filled with twists and turns. It is a winding road that cannot be easily predicted, and only those who can truly see it may also become corrupted because of it. Rumpelstiltskin knew power in the future would be more important than anything. So important that love was even cast aside, but I think he knew deep in his seemingly stoned heart that Belle was worth everything he had...more than everything he had. Had this have been me, he'd have given it all up. Hell, he gave his magic for me!

This was already eating away at him, but I held that kiss as if my life depended on it. My magic danced with his for a few moments, and slowly, after hours of provoking him and allowing me to come in complete contact with him, I could feel his body finally relaxing. Rumpelstiltskin shook less violently, his movement became more steady, and I had finally proved to him that things were going to be okay.

The power of silence, the self-control of each motion I made towards or with him, was in it of itself an art. This was instinct to me. I just-I just knew how to relieve him of pain and suffering. A person could have more than one true love, but only one can connect on a level unknown to scholars. Yes, he loves Belle more than he does me. He should be with Belle, and that is what he wants. Although I will never understand what we feel, that is how it has to be. But I don't mind because our connection is impossible to break. Not even a curse could destroy that, nothing could. Not on that level of sincerity.

"Rumpel..." I sighed, releasing his lips from mine and pulling him into a tight embrace as he lay limp, his head on my shoulder. "Can you hear me?'

He nodded in response.

"Good..." I had to muster up everything I had to not cry as I said what I had to next. "Then listen please. You love Belle, I know you do. Without the details and without the stories, look at it. Love is there for you. Now, I want you to take that love...and never let it go. If you let her go again, you'd better be damn sure you know what you're doing."

I rested my own chin on top of his head while he came closer to me. There was an unspoken love between us that may never be official, but to those who know us, it's obvious. Not many know us though, so it is well enough discrete.

He didn't say anything as I expected but that was perfectly all right. Indeed, Rumpelstiltskin was a difficult man to love, but to me and Belle, he was worth it. He was worth everything.

My chest was becoming soaked with his tears, not that I minded. When I got him to stand, the first place he stumbled to was that old spinning wheel. Sitting, staring in a daze of confusion and hurt, his hand began to turn the wheel. That would calm his magic to be sure, so perhaps that was good distraction for him at the moment. I leaned over his shoulder, sighing deeply and longingly.

Without establishing any plans, I knew I was to stay with him for a while, so as I glanced at him from time to time to make sure he was all right, I decided to write to Morraine, explaining what had happened. Suggesting that she tell me anything Belle said to her, I folded the letter as I finished in gold ink. It was all he had lying around.

"How could she ever love me? No one can..." he said aloud randomly in the silence that had surrounded us for hours.

"She loves you as I do," I told him. "Unconditionally, and you'd best start believing that. No explanation could ever convince you...that's why you have feelings. They just exist."

The wheel ceased spinning and he turned to me, cueing me to walk closer which I did.

"She sees in you what I do," I told him for certain.

"I know," he said, standing. "But there are things she will never understand..." We kissed again.

"That is why you have me," I said, forcing a smile afterwards. Rumpel embraced me, just as tightly as when he rescued me from the Evil Queen. That is how I knew he still loved me.

I felt his body rise and heard his exhale, deep and thorough. As long as he had love, things were all right for him. but kissing Belle meant giving up his power, no matter how badly and tempted he was to do such. Kissing me...well, that meant he could calm down, be at a longing peace when in times of rage and confusion, and then he could resume life after my work was done.

Still, he needed me for that, and I was willing to do such, no matter how pointless the task because I will never be the first person in his life that he will look to protect. If the Evil Queen had to kill one of us, I'd understand if he protected her instead of me. I'm not entirely sure if he knew that, or perhaps he would pick me. Maybe he would, depending on how much his power meant to him at that moment in time. As a matter of fact, he definitely would. To see me killed would shatter him to a point of no return. Belle would never calm him from that, but I could calm him if he lost Belle...

"Stay tonight," he finally said.

"No matter what," I replied.