"Please," Rumpelstiltskin whimpered as he cowered in the elevator just as she'd once seen him cower at freedom in Zelena's idea of a jail cell. Well, perhaps it wasn't identical, but it was close enough to make her stare opened mouthed at him. Then he'd retreated from the light, from freedom, and from her. Now he averted his eyes and retreated only from her. She could see that if she hadn't been standing there, he probably would have made a run for the door. And no wonder, she'd been ready to strike, the fire extinguisher hiding her face.
"Oh! Hey, hey," she gasped setting the extinguisher aside and showing empty hands. "It's okay! It's-it's just me!"
He was so frightened, so small. As much as she wanted to she couldn't just rush over to him and pull him out herself. She had no idea where he'd been or what he'd been through, he'd been traumatized as it was after Zelena, even if he refused to confess that was what kept him up at night she knew that was the problem! What would it have been like to be powerless and trapped again but by none other than the Dark One?!
But he changed at her words. He finally peeked up at her from where he was on the elevator floor and his face softened in wonder and amazement before it began to wrinkle again in a look that she recognized. Tears. He was crying.
"It's okay," she breathed again.
"Belle," he whispered looking her over.
"I-it's just me," she assured him, suddenly very happy she'd sent Rapunzel away for the evening. She didn't need to see this, no one needed to see him like this.
Rumpelstiltskin moved. He let go of what he'd been clutching, a big stick or branch of some kind and reached for the doors. She could see what he'd fashioned for himself as he struggled to move and stand up properly. A cane. Without magic his leg was crippled again. It was just one more thing to add to the shock of it all.
"Is it really you?" he cried struggling under his own weight but looking at her as though she might be an angel or possibly a devil. It wasn't terribly surprising to her; people had been using her against him long before Emma had been the Dark One. What had happened to him now?
"Yeah," she assured him. But instead of relief or even happiness on his face at the pronouncement he averted his eyes.
"She's after me," he muttered doing his best to step forward. He nearly fell.
"W-wait!" she urged stepping to grab a chair, remembering that he couldn't walk as he once had, but before she could get one he grabbed the closest one by the elevator and pulled it forward before collapsing into it.
"It's okay," she urged remembering his words. The "she" was easy enough to guess. "You're safe now," she assured him. She didn't know how but she'd protect him. She'd make sure Emma didn't get to him again, that no one got to him and took him from her ever again. "It's okay. It's okay!" she breathed just as much to herself as to him as she grabbed her own chair and sat down opposite him to look him over. He didn't seem hurt. She couldn't see bruises of any kind, not on his face at least. The rest of him…she couldn't tear her eyes off of his. And yet she couldn't seem to get her legs to pull herself any closer than she was, a solid six inches from his knees. To think there was a time when she would have been joyful just to let them brush together!
"Oh Belle," he sighed. "Thank you."
Suddenly she worried as she looked him over. Was he hallucinating? She hadn't done anything. At least nothing significant. As far as she was concerned all she'd done so far was stare at him and tell him it was "okay", and she was pretty sure it wasn't okay! Still, he'd freed himself. "Thank you" seemed inappropriate and confusing. She didn't understand...
"What?"
"No, I…I meant when I was in the coma," he added. "All I wanted to do was let go. After all I'd done why did I deserve to live? And then I heard something…your voice." She opened her mouth to say something but had to close it again because she didn't have the words at his proclamation. So he had heard her. Here, certainly, but maybe even there, in Camelot. She could remember saying something to him from there, in Granny's diner before their memories stopped, she could remember begging him quietly to hold on for her and hoping the message got through. Had it? Was it possible that the rose was what she thought it was? Not just a link to him for her, but a link to her for him as well. And she just didn't know what to say to him knowing what she'd said, knowing what had passed between them before all that.
"After all the things I'd done to you…you still stood by me! Belle, if it wasn't for you…I wouldn't even be alive!" He reached for her hands and choked out a "Thank you!" through tears that made her heart feel like they were caught in a vise. Tears had always been the most difficult thing for either of them to resist. They could be so angry they were ready to throw fire at one another sometimes…one tear made the world melt away as they held one another. And it was so easy to do that, it would be so easy now to do that, to reach out and hold him until his tears passed, and just take him back and be with him until…until the next deception…
Remembering that she shook herself out of her stupor and pulled her hands from his. No. No, she couldn't do this again. She wasn't ready to yet and they had bigger problems to deal with. Like the person who was after him. "Come on! It uh…it won't take Emma long to figure out where you've gone," she stated quickly rising to her feet and looking around for the sheer purpose of putting distance between the two of them. She'd forgotten just how alluring true love was, how she could be pulled to him even when she was supposed to be angry at him. Was. Even when she was, as in still presently, angry with him.
"If she wanted to find me she would have already. She wanted me to escape," Rumple explained from his place on the chair. She was almost grateful he didn't have his cane. She wasn't ready for him to follow after her so eagerly just yet. But that didn't change the circumstances he'd just spoken of. He was right. If Emma wanted to find him she could find him with only a thought, which meant that she either didn't know he was gone yet, a theory she found doubtful, or he was a right, a theory she couldn't understand.
"Tha-that doesn't make sense, she kidnapped you!" she pointed out. Why kidnap someone and then just let them go when they ran away. Much less Rumple who couldn't stand or even fight right now to save his life?!
"Yeah, to turn me into a hero," Rumple sneered. "So I could pull Excalibur from the stone." She needed a hero to pull Excalibur from the stone. That was new information. But if pulling Excalibur from the stone was Emma's goal so she could destroy Light Magic then…why let him go? She assumed he hadn't done his task if he'd had to escape and since the world wasn't dripping with blackness she assumed that Emma hadn't won yet.
"Well, how does letting you escape accomplish that?"
Why let Rumple go? Why not come after him? Why take their teacup if she was just going to let him go? None of this made any sense. Apparently it made little sense to him as well as he stayed silent for a moment, his eyes searching the floor and the world around her for something, anything to solve this puzzle!
"She's coming after you," he whispered suddenly. But that didn't make any sense either.
"Me? Why?"
"To force me to protect you!" he shouted. "She thinks that'll make me the hero that she needs," he explained with sad helpless eyes. "Belle, you're in danger," he whispered.
Yes. She didn't understand why Emma needed a hero to pull the sword from the stone but if that was what it took, if Emma believed that forcing him to protect her, an innocent victim, was what would make him a hero then she'd do it. She nodded in agreement. He was right. They were both in danger.
"Okay. So…so what do we do?" she asked.
"The shop," he whispered, pointing his thumb at it through the walls of the library. "There's magic there that can help us."
"Alright s-so…so we need to get to the shop and we need to get there before Emma can find us and come after us and kill us." When she put it that way it seemed almost easy. Smartest way to go would be out the back, shortest way to go would be out the front door and simply cross the street. Looking at Rumple and how he was resting on a chair as if he'd never seen relief before, probably the shortest way was also the smartest way.
She swallowed as she got to her feet and went to the window. She pulled the blinds aside and inspected the streets out front, then went into the back and did the same. So far so good. No sign of anyone with white hair and black clothing, in fact there was hardly any sign of anyone on the street. Everyone must have been at dinner and she honestly couldn't decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing for them. Only one way to find out.
She bolted back into the front room and pulled the blinds down again for a final check. "We'll go out the front way, I think it'll be faster for both of us.
"Belle…" he sighed.
She ignored him as she looked up and down the street again. Now was as good a time as any, she certainly couldn't risk Rapunzel and Flynn coming back and involving them in this. "Alright…the coast is clear," she whispered before glancing back at him. "We should go now!"
"N-no, no, no, I'm sor-I-I can't-I can't go, I'm sorry!" he refused quickly making her stop before she could reach him. He couldn't go? This was his plan, everything hinged on getting to magic in his shop and suddenly he couldn't go?!
"But your shop's only a hundred yards away!" she argued. She knew that his leg hurt, she knew it wasn't going to be fun but his cane, the magic, everything they needed was over there and she certainly wasn't going to leave him here all by himself! She could support him, they could make it!
"No, I'm…I'm sorry I can't."
Couldn't. Couldn't wasn't the issue she knew from the look in his eye.
It was wouldn't.
She had few memories of him with that look of terror on his face, but the one that she was certain she had was fresh. The town line. It wasn't that he couldn't make it across the street, he was just too scared to try. But if he really thought that she was just going to run and leave him behind, risk Emma finding him again when her back was turned…no there wasn't a chance of that happening.
"You made it out of the woods and through the mines…this isn't just about you getting back to your shop, is it?" she questioned.
He was quiet for a long while, he glanced up at her in an awkward way because never before had she really towered over him like this. But eventually he looked away, he looked ashamed. "It's my leg," he breathed again. She stayed silent. His leg wasn't the issue. And she wasn't going to just let him let this go. If it took silence to goad him on then that's what she'd do. The Dark One had often found comfort in silence, she knew Rumple didn't, not when there was something so big between the two of them, not when there was something so important they needed to discuss and she expected him to discuss it.
"It's a reminder of what I was when I fled the ogre wars, what I continued to be when I became the Dark One, and what I still am is a coward," he eventually admitted glancing up at her again. Coward. She really, really hated that word. He wasn't a coward. A coward wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as he had. And if he thought that this was all news to her, that this was a shocking revelation, he couldn't be more wrong! It had been so hard to remember over the last few months, but now she did recall how sometimes she saw him far clearer than he saw himself.
"You've told me why you have that limp before! Because you walked for days on a broken foot just so you could return to your son!" she pointed out.
"Do you know how the foot was broken in the first place? Because-"
"Because you broke it!" she smiled before leaning down next to him so he wouldn't have to look up at her anymore. Had he really forgotten how much he'd told her? Had she? "So that Baelfire wouldn't grow up without a father, Rumple…you may have made many mistakes in your life but this isn't one of them." That was only an act of cowardice from a military point of view. From her view, after the death she'd seen Ogre's inflict, leaving for Baelfire and suffering the consequences was honorable!
Still she could see that he didn't believe her. How could he not believe her, she'd always been honest with him and these few times…she knew he'd been honest with her. It was hard to admit. Her head didn't want her to admit it, to open herself up to something like that again. But her heart urged her forward, prodded at her until she knelt down next to him and held his hands in her own.
"I have always seen the man behind the beast, alright, but now…" she wasn't sure how she managed to say it. That was the truth, it was what made everything at the town line so horrible and painful. She'd seen the man, she'd watched him let the beast consume what had been left of the man she loved, and that to her was one of the worst, unspeakable acts he could commit, that had been cowardice! But now the beast was gone and the man remained and what she saw in that man…he was wonderful. Just as handsome and dashing as she'd always known. And heroic! He cared for her far more than he did for himself. And he was smart and brave…she didn't know how but he'd escaped the Dark One on a bad ankle with nothing but a stick and his intelligence and made his way back to her. That was what mattered to her, not magic and lies, but strength and will!
If he could do all that, then she knew that he could make it across the street and help her, he could protect them both! He just had to believe it. "Now I see something else too. A hero. And you…you just need to learn to see him too!"
Yay! Rumbelle reunion! I always looked forward to writing this episode. You know, I think that is what is making the writing of 5B so difficult right now. In nearly every season I've always had that one special scene of motivation, in season 2 it was Belle remembering who she was, in 3A it 3x10, in 3B it was the wedding, 4A was fun to write because there was a lot of good with the bad, but starting in 4B things got complicated. The little scene we got at the end was motivation, but not nearly enough of it. Camelot had next to nothing. And the rest of 5A...5x06 was pretty much it. That motivation doesn't really exist for 5B. I hope beyond hope that season 6 will give us some kind of motivation to go on. And when I say motivation I mean more than one scene, more than one episode. More than two episodes even! Hell, at this point if we get three happy, no deception, working together, healing episodes, I'll be happy! Wouldn't you?
Thank you, Grace5231973, Carlyle23, Teresa Martin, Fox24, Kathryn Claire O'Connor, Ladybugsmomma, and my unnamed guest, for all the reviews you left me on the previous chapter! They were lovely. I hope that this scene will live up to your expectations. It's not difficult to, we all liked 5x06, so I know that the real test comes afterwards, filling the in-betweens in! I'll do my best! Peace and Happy Reading!
