4 Months, 1 Week, 1 Day
"We..." she struggled to find the words as she looked across the small lake to the castle perched ominously on top of the mountain. They'd done it. They'd found it! "We did it! Neal, we did it, we did it!" she nearly screamed before throwing her arms around him. "We did it! We found the castle! We're home!" And she couldn't have been happier! Too many days, too many weeks of waiting and now they were here! It had all paid off in the end!
"Not quite," Neal muttered as he gently pushed her away and looked at the castle over her shoulder. A hug, even in celebration, was obviously too far over the line for him at a time like this. But that was of no matter. They'd done it! They'd have plenty of time for more bonding as soon as they made it to the castle and got her Rumpelstiltskin back! "We've still got a day, a long one, but we'll make it. You ready?" he asked, glancing down at her.
"Yes!"
Maybe. She hoped. She hoped she was ready. Every step they took through the woods would bring her closer to home, closer to him, and yet her heart pounded faster than ever before! The last time she'd been here, he'd kicked her out. She'd kissed him and he'd told her to go, to leave! The last time she'd seen those doors they were closing behind her. The last time she'd seen this road it was running away from the painful memories he'd left her with. Was she ready for it? Really ready to finally go home and confront all those memories?
Ready or not she didn't have a choice. She and Neal packed up the horse and began their careful trek up into the mountain, keeping off the road and hidden in the trees just in case someone was there, waiting for them, trying to stop them from getting this far. But they encountered no one. Saw no signs of life, heard nothing out of the ordinary, no hint that something was out of place or wrong. Instead the castle wall just kept growing, higher and higher into the sky the closer they came.
"You don't think they're inside do you?" Neal asked when they could make out the doors.
"No," she answered. "Even if they were here they probably left. We've been gone now nearly a month I don't see them waiting that long for us. Do you?" He shook his head but reached up and grabbed his bow and quiver off the horse, delicately threading an arrow against the bowstring.
"Better safe than sorry," he muttered as an explanation. Still the sight of the weapon made her shiver. Even if they were inside and they got caught, Neal wouldn't actually shoot them…would he? Neal gave an encouraging nod and the two of them walked off down the path and opened the door.
It was a surreal experience to see it there again. To be up here surrounded by snow and the castle walls. But it was also familiar and comfortable. The grounds looked a little worse for wear, but everything was right where she'd left it. The gardens, the trees, the towers…even her library. She couldn't wait for Neal, or maybe she could, she just didn't feel like taking the time to find out. Her legs automatically moved her forward, drawing her closer to the place that had originally been her prison, but felt more like home than her father's palace.
The doors opened at her touch and she felt numb, looking around the entry way. Home. The flowers in the vase were dead. Long dead. The table hadn't been dusted probably since she left. The floors needed mopped. The tapestries beat. It was funny how protective she was of it, how much pride she took in a place that she supposed had never really belonged to her! It was strange how years later she could come back inside with a task as serious as she and Neal had and her first reaction was to start plotting how she was going to clean up the mess she saw! But then again she supposed it wasn't that odd. It was vandalized and abandoned, sacked and looted by the look of it, but home was still home no matter what happened too it. This would always be home for her!
Finally she took a deep breath, preparing herself for heartache, then pressed open the door into the great room. Their room. It was worse than the entry way, not a bit as valiant and proud as it had once been, but a fire jumping to life in the grate caught her attention…and nearly drew tears from her eyes. Yes, it was still home.
A hand tight on her shoulder made her jump. Neal. How long had he been there? "There's a fire lit," he muttered quietly, "someone could be here." Clearly he hadn't been standing in the room as long as she had.
"No," she smiled, unbuckling his cloak and handing it over to him. "It's for me," she explained. "He bewitched it so I wouldn't be cold, so I wouldn't have to light it myself or ask him to do it for me…so I wouldn't see his kindness." She imagined when she finally saw him again she'd run forward and fall into his arms, that he'd hold her tight as she buried her head against his chest and held him back for a few precious moments before the world intervened. He wasn't here now, but she still found herself launching forward and falling down next to the warm blaze, fighting off tears as it warmed her numb skin. Her chair, theirs, the one that was supposed to be his but had become hers was gone. Her blankets might be somewhere in the mess but for now they too were missing. It didn't matter. This was enough after their long journey.
"Hey, can I ask you a question," Neal asked from somewhere behind her. The tone made her heart race. Neal never asked if he could ask a question he always just did…unless the question was important in some way. "My father's castle," he inquired, "how did you know about it? That this is where we need to start looking for the dagger, what he keeps here?"
"I've been here before."
"Yeah, I got that, but why? I mean I can't exactly picture my dad dating like a regular guy or anything…where exactly did you come into the picture? When? How?"
Her stomach clenched as she realized what he was asking, the inevitable place he'd finally arrived. "Like everyone else does…I made a deal."
"For what?" he pressed. Time was running out. The tale she'd been hoping to tell at just the right time, that she didn't know until this moment she'd hoped Rumpelstiltskin would be around to help answer was drawing closer.
"Freedom," she muttered, choosing her words carefully. "I made a deal for my freedom."
"Freedom from what? Your father? That guy you were supposed to marry?" he continued to prod. Maybe it couldn't be avoided anymore, not while they were here. Maybe it wouldn't go over nearly as bad as she feared. They'd known each other now for months lived in close contact, under the same roof! Maybe if she was gentle, if she used her words carefully, she could tell him the truth without lying to him. Maybe she could make him understand it wasn't as awful as she knew it would probably sound.
"Both," she muttered, casually leaving out the part that in order to gain that freedom she'd been enslaved first. Delicacy, this required, above all, delicacy. "There's, uh, there's something else I need to see...something I should show you," she relented getting to her feet and casting her fire one last warm grin.
It was what she needed to explain to Neal, to show him, to show herself if she really intended to return to the home she'd had here. It was…gone.
Her heart dropped as she made her way over to the place her door had once been, the one that took her down to the dungeons and the kitchen. There was a cabinet door open on the opposite wall that she'd never seen before, but her door was gone! Nothing but a solid wall
"Belle?" Neal prompted after a second. She was staring at a blank wall, she couldn't help it. To be in this room and not see it wasn't just strange it was upsetting! Had he been that angry at her when she'd left? So angry that he'd gotten rid of everything that reminded him of her?
"There used to be a door here," she explained to Neal. "He must have sealed it when I left," remorsefully she stepped up to the solid wall and placed her hand on the place that a knob had once been. Suddenly the wall seemed to tremble, quiver, and the wall looked as though it was on fire. No, not exactly. It looked as though the paint on the plaster was seared away at her touch. Instantly she gasped and jumped back, Neal caught her as they watched the solid wall dissolve into…
"My door!" she gasped when it was complete. It wasn't gone at all just hidden. From what? His eyes? Strangers?
"Blood magic?" Neal pondered behind her. She could hear the confusion and amazement dancing together in his voice at the spectacle. Clearly more amazed at the magic than at the reappearance of something so dear to her.
"Can't be," she answered stepping forward. She didn't know what 'blood magic' was but she figured it was self-explanatory: magic enacted by blood. But it couldn't be that. They weren't related and she couldn't think of a time she'd ever been injured here that would have caused her to bleed, and she was certain she would have remembered if he'd ever collected it from her. Besides, why would he seal it with blood magic? As far as he'd known she was dead, it wasn't as if she would ever be able to come back and open it for him? So why would he do this? Why would it give way at her touch?! Was it something they shared, something he created that would open for him and her as well because of the bond he'd broken that had once been so strong within them? It wasn't blood magic but was there such a thing as soul magic? That she could open it because they'd shared the same one?
"So, what's the door mean?" Neal asked behind her, the shock wearing off. It was now or never. Maybe the way things were between the two of them, compared to the relationship she knew he had with his father it wouldn't be a bad idea for her to explain things. She just wished she had the words for where to begin.
No, she had the words! Words that weren't hers to begin with, words that he'd used to tell Lacey about the pair of them months ago. The words that didn't scare her but reassured her. Stories were always clever tools, she knew that first hand. Maybe she wouldn't be the only one to tell this tale, maybe he could help her.
"Once…" she began opening the door and leading him down the stairs, down to her "room", "there was a princess from a faraway land. On the outside she had everything that a young noble woman should. She was engaged to a young noble man, had servants, a kingdom that would one day be hers, but on the inside she was trapped. She felt as though the entire world was spinning around her and she was helpless to live in it, forever cursed to only watch as others made decisions on her behalf, always wanting her to stand beside the hero and be rescued instead of having the opportunity to be the hero herself.
"But her Kingdom wasn't perfect and when it was invaded by ogres happiness quickly turned to fear, wedding plans to battle plans, and the people around her grew more and more desperate. At the princess's urging the King contacted a dark sorcerer, their last hope to spare their land and the people within it.
"The sorcerer said he would help, but only for a price-"
"Because everything with my father comes for a price," Neal blurted out almost irritated behind her.
She ignored him, offered only a single unhappy nod of confirmation and went on. "The sorcerer was looking for a caretaker, someone to help run his estate…or so he claimed. But the chains he offered her…they were nothing compared the chains she'd been living with her entire life. It was a chance to make a sacrifice, a good sacrifice for the benefit of everyone including her friends and family. So she agreed. She left her family, her friends, her fiancé, and the sorcerer brought her to the estate…here," she muttered when she realized they'd arrived at her cell.
It looked just like it had the day she'd left. Bare, because by that time she'd moved everything up to the real room he'd given her only a weeks before she'd left, but this still felt more like home than that room ever did. The bed and the straw were still there, carefully preserved just like the straw and wool had been in their house. And there on the ground…the tea set. Her tea set. Chipped cup and all. She moved forward and snatched the cup up off the ground. The magic must have delivered it right back to the last place it belonged…or had he left it in here after she'd gone and forgotten about it? It looked as though nothing else had been moved, as if he was trying to preserve her memory, her smell, the things she had touched, her very soul! It was so much like him she nearly wept as she cradled it close to her chest.
"It wasn't all bad," she managed to go on, swallowing her tears and using every last ounce of strength she had not to dissolve into her sadness. "He liked to pretend he was cruel, he liked to act worse than he actually was, but the girl…I could see through it," she told him dropping pretense, though still feeling like she couldn't dare meet his eyes. She just couldn't face him right now, or the echo into Rumpelstiltskin's eyes they'd offer.
"I could see there was more to him, that he was hurt, suffering, that the façade he presented to the world and initially to me was false. No one in the world could be as cruel as he pretended to be and slowly, over time, we began to know each other, to tolerate and like each other. We began to feel something more for one another, we just didn't know what it was!" It was the beginning of the bond, the beginning of that beautiful connection he'd broken when he placed that knife into his own chest and left her with a gaping hole in the place that it used to reside! They'd both known later what they'd felt for one another, and just how true and deep it had been, but then-
"He took you from your home, a princess from her kingdom...and made you a maid?!" he clarified angrily, making her finally turn to see him, leaning up against her door frame and looking unimpressed around the room. "You ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome?" Neal balked behind her, clearly irritated though she didn't know if he was upset with her or with his father. That was what she'd been afraid of, that he wouldn't understand it, that he'd misinterpret what the pair of them had. She hadn't heard of Stockholm Syndrome, but Lacey had and she knew how he had to be seeing his father and her for that matter in order to think such a thing. In his mind Rumpelstiltskin was the bad guy, the one that had dragged her away kicking and screaming and brainwashed her to be sympathetic towards him, but that wasn't how it happened at all! He hadn't tried to make her sympathetic, he'd tried to push her away, to make her scared. She'd fallen in love with him anyway.
"It wasn't that," she insisted gently. "If it had been then I wouldn't have been about to break his curse!" The greatest sign that it was true love and not just two adults holed up in the cold winter mountains together!
"Wait, wait! 'Break his curse'? The curse of the Dark One? What do you mean break it?" Neal questioned looking at her again, the way she wanted him too this time, with interest instead of questionable sanity.
"It's true love, Neal," she declared, suddenly wondering why it had taken her so long to say those simple words. He knew that she loved him, that he loved her, she'd used that word before but she'd never confessed to him, or anyone before really just how deep that love went, how real it was. How true. "He's not just my 'boyfriend' as everyone in Storybrooke was always so content to assume, we're more than that.
"After months together, when he realized we were falling for one another he let me go, to have my own adventures and not be held back, so that he could continue to keep his walls up and I wouldn't be a distraction, but…" But they'd done all that in the end and it still hadn't been enough.
"But?" Neal prompted.
"But I loved him," she told him confidently. "I loved him and I couldn't stand the thought of never seeing him again so I came back and that night, the first time we kissed…his curse began to break." She had to hand it to his son. He didn't flinch at the emotional stuff the way she was sure some children might hearing about the way their parents carried on their affairs. Frankly she was surprised that she didn't hesitate to tell him about that moment! She wanted to keep that little bit from him even if he did have a son of his own, but as Neal's friend…it made talking about it better. Friends talked about that kind stuff didn't they?
"Began?" Neal prompted more as she continued to look around the room amazed that it was still so familiar to her, that she could close her eyes and picture every stone, every bar, and crack just as perfectly as she would have if she'd lived here yesterday! "Wait! Began as in his curse, the dagger's magic, began to break...but didn't finish?"
Observant. Clever and observant. And sometimes she wished he wasn't so much like his father and he could just let some details rest…then again, maybe that was a detail Neal needed to hear. As she remembered his reaction that day, the confusion she'd had about it, the way it had been decades before she understood why he'd really pushed her away…if anyone needed to know that it should be Neal.
"He couldn't let that happen," she informed him. "So, he stopped it before it could."
"Why?" he asked looking utterly perplexed.
"You," she smiled. "It took me a long time to understand, it was a while before he trusted me enough to tell me about you, who you were, where you were. But it was always about you. He needed his curse, Bae. He needed to be the Dark One, to be powerful enough to orchestrate a curse so powerful to get himself back to you, so he could find you!
"He loved me, he'll always love me but he didn't want me to come between the two of you. He couldn't let himself be happy with me if it meant never getting you back. He'd already exchanged you once for power he wasn't about to do it again for me! For love-"
"That makes for a very strained distant relationship between you two."
"Or no relationship at all," she muttered sadly. "I didn't know about you then, didn't know why he wanted to shut me out, but he did. He made me leave the castle, having me around wasn't worth the temptation to give into what we had, let the curse break, settle down... So he sent me away again, this time for good. Regina captured me, I've told you that before, and after she was sure I couldn't be free the first thing she did was tell him I was dead.
"This..." she placed a hand on the wall of her prison. It hadn't always been a plain wall. She'd once smuggled a trunk down here and stuffed it full of the dresses he'd left for her around the castle. She'd used it until she had too many to fit and then she'd taken another trunk. That had been against that wall. And under the bed she'd kept the blankets that she'd foraged for herself. She'd started with nothing and turned this place into home. And now...all that was left. "This place was my home. A prison at first but I fixed it up, made it nice, lived here quite happily. He eventually gave in and gave me my own room upstairs but...this will always be my room to me. He must have sealed it not long after I left," she added looking down at the dusty tea set.
"He wanted to remember you…" Neal inserted for her. Yes. He'd wanted to remember her, to have those memories because he did want her even then. He just wanted, no, needed, Baelfire more! And without his power he wouldn't have done that. She understood that now, knew that if she'd stayed or come back to him it would only have been a matter of time before they couldn't keep their distance and the curse would have been broken. If he couldn't have her, then he'd given himself the next best thing and preserved her memory…just like she'd seen him do with another part of his life.
"You deserve better than this," he muttered suddenly with anger. "Better than a fixed up prison cell or a room in a tower! And you should have told me all this before!" he strained before turning and walking away. She knew a reaction like that was likely. Maybe he hadn't been as ready as she was to see her old room, protective of her as he was, but she could fix it. She knew she could. She hoped she could.
"And you!" she called after him. He stopped dead at her simply words. "It wasn't just me, he wanted to remember you too."
"What are you talking about?" he asked, trying to hide his hopeful curiosity behind his anger. She only smiled and shook her head at his silly attempt to sound disinterested. They'd been together too long, she knew him too well now for that. He wanted to know what she was talking about, which was a good thing because he needed to know, to see what she had seen decades ago. His father had loved him, he'd left her with precious information, stories, small discussions, even rooms for her to offer him as proof. If he couldn't do it himself, then she was the one that had to do it for him…at least until he came back to them.
So she left her chipped cup there in her room where she'd found it, closed the door behind her, and urged Neal to come with her one more time. "There's one last thing you need to see," she explained. Her story, their trip to the dungeons must not have completely destroyed how he saw her because he did as she said. He followed after her and she left the dungeons, her dwelling, and up the stairs, through their great room where the fire still roared, across the entryway, and into the hallway she once had considered his own. The place that his bedroom was, or should have been. The door was gone too but she didn't panic, she got the sense that if she could open her quarters with only a touch the door to his own room would open the same way and with any luck, so would the door that was supposed to be next to his own. It opened into a room she'd rarely gone into because of the relics it held, because of the relics she hoped were just hidden behind a strong enchantment.
Without a moment of hesitation she reached her hand out and placed it on the place she knew the door existed. It appeared just like her own door had, as if her touch magically burned away the false paper to reveal-
"Hey that used to be my room," Neal commented behind her. "I completely forgot about it!" He sounded astonished as he stepped around her and opened the door. It was just as she remembered. He hadn't found out that she knew about this place until the day that he'd freed her and secretly she wondered if he'd been back since that day, if it had been left to gather dust as her space had. It wouldn't surprise her one bit if it had.
"I found this when I was cleaning one day," she informed Neal, who was busy walking around looking it over as if he hadn't seen it in centuries…probably because he hadn't.
"Yeah, yeah, this was my bedroom," he told her, suddenly sounded almost surprised. "He got this castle to keep me safe, but I never really liked living here, I always felt so isolated, and just wanted to be normal so my Dad let us continue to live in the village so I'd be happy. But the few times we came up here this was where I always stayed…right next to my dad."
She smiled as she watched him look around. It made so much sense. All he'd ever wanted was Neal's happiness, if staying in the village made him happy he would have done it, even if he didn't like being around others. But that didn't mean this room wasn't special to him. No matter how long they'd stayed Neal had once called this place home and he'd done his best to preserve that just as he'd preserved her space.
"He kept it safe for you," she muttered wandering over the dresser and pulling open a drawer that still revealed the children's clothes she'd found once. Yes, that was the same pattern she used to fold. He hadn't come back since she'd been here. And it made her have to choke back her tears again.
Neal wandered over next to her and glanced into the drawer, looking down shocked at his own tiny clothes still there folded so neatly and perfectly. "He wanted to keep the only bit of you he had left as safe as possible after he'd failed the first time. He's always loved you Neal, no matter what. The best moment of his life was the first time he held you and the worst was when he let you go," she recalled perfectly.
When she glanced over at Neal he was still staring down at the clothes but there was something different about him, something that hadn't been there before. It was a shine, a small glimmer in his eyes that she hadn't seen since…she'd never seen him like that! Never seen him tear up before over Emma or Henry! But now…
She reached up and touched his shoulder, offering a small comforting gesture. If it was her she'd want comfort. She'd want his arm around her, she'd want him to hug her to his chest as she cried like they'd done in the past. But Neal wasn't her. He wasn't as open with his emotions, he didn't open up as easily as she did. She would want comfort, but he would want the opposite. He'd want privacy, time to collect his thoughts to figure out what he was seeing and connect it with an emotion that she knew he had to be feeling!
So she let him. As much as she wanted to stay and help him with it all, she had to give him the space that he'd requested of her what seemed like an eternity ago. As much as she wanted to mother him and tell him he wasn't alone anymore, she didn't.
Instead she told him she had some other things she wanted to look at and left without any sign that he'd heard her.
Ugh, I'm sorry this chapter is so long. In a perfect world I would have been able to split it into two chapters but alas, there was no good place to do that so it's really long. Sorry. But hopefully, given the subject matter, you enjoyed it anyway.
Thank you to Jael73, Meredith Pechta, Kathryn Claire O'Connor, Agent66, Raizen Yusuke, and Skitzoeinhoven for your reviews on the last chapter. I'm not ashamed to admit I was a little worried about it, given the fact that Belle and Neal were so touchy with one another but I'm glad that everyone appreciated that in the end. I love layered relationship! Peace and Happy Reading!
