SUBJECT 204
Notes: This chapter took longer than anticipated, and there are some parts I'm not sure about but there are a couple of scenes in here I feel pretty pumped about!
Also, this chapter was sponsored by Konako and her fab art, which you can check out on her tumblr or on the Ao3 mirror of this fic.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
As much as Tiana's heart was probably in the right place, with how she asked questions and offered her number and her home as an option, Ruby still couldn't help but wonder if this was all still some sort of test. Maybe Tiana was luring them into a trap and planning to take them to Dr. Gold the moment they got comfortable or fell asleep. Maybe Tiana was testing them with her questions and looks of concern to see if they were hiding anything.
Maybe everything here right now was just an elaborate test and Dr. Gold was just waiting behind that wall up ahead. He could just be biding his time and getting ready to come out and say the test was over and she had to go back to her room and put her collar and cuffs back on.
Maybe this was all just some dream.
What if she woke up back in her room? Back with the collar and cuffs and the solid walls and bright lights and greys and blacks and whites everywhere?
"Ruby, wait." The subject didn't know if she would be able to handle waking up back at the facility. Didn't know if she would still be able to go through the tests all over again. "Ruby, please."
Looking over her shoulder, the subject checked to see if anyone was following, ready to leap upon them and shock them with the prods until they were subdued.
"Ruby."
The subject realized they'd stopped walking and Belle was looking at her. "Ruby, you're hurting my hand."
Guilt blasted through the subject as she let go of Belle's hand and recoiled. The sight of Belle now, it hit the subject like one of Gold's prods. A blow to the jaw and a jab into the stomach. It hurt, seeing how Belle had to alter her appearance to minimize their chances of being recognized. How Belle was thinner now after she had to spend time as a prisoner in the facility. How she had bruises on her face and a cut on her lip from Gold's abuse.
Belle's whole life, from her home to her very appearance was taken away from her because of the subject.
"I'm sorry." She gasped, horrified by how much of Belle's life had been ruined. On top of that she almost had her hand crushed. The subject was a monster. More apologies caught in her throat as she tried to let them out. She choked on them and mutely opened and closed her mouth.
"Ruby, hey," Belle stepped forward and clasped the subject's hands, "It's okay, take it easy."
"N-no.." Was the only word the subject managed to gasp out. "No." She shook her head, halfheartedly tried to pull away, but also unable to deny that she found strength and comfort in their contact with each other.
"It's okay." Belle repeated. "You stopped. My hand is fine. I'm fine. I'm okay."
There was still a mess of thoughts and emotions running through the subject's mind that she couldn't quite express. She still felt like the struggles Belle had gone through weren't worth it for the subject. Just some murderous creature.
But she couldn't help but latch onto the comfort of their clasped hands. "You're… okay?" She just had to be more careful and more gentle. Much much more gentle.
"Yeah." Belle said, "Ruby, I'm okay. Let's keep walking?"
Sighing, the subject reminded herself that she was supposed to be Ruby now. She was outside now and she wasn't going to be waking up back in the facility and this wasn't all some elaborate test. This was freedom. This was outside. The sky was bright and blue and beautiful. It was starting to get cloudy, but it was still beautiful. Still vast and endless, blue and wide.
"Okay."
They started to walk again, Belle leading the way since she seemed to have some memory of where Tiana said the shelter would be. As they made their way there, Ruby found herself starting to feel tired as the weight of the past few days latched onto her body. The full moon had just passed and though she'd eaten her fill this morning, she was still drained and still needed to sleep to be able to really recharge.
Belle meanwhile was obviously exhausted, even if she tried to hide it and keep her head up.
"Do… you like… it?" Ruby asked, touching Belle's hair.
Shrugging, Belle continued to walk, "It'll take some getting used to, but yeah… I guess I like it."
"Sorry that…" Ruby licked her lips as her throat started to tighten up again and trap the words, "…you… had to d-do… that."
With a dismissive flick of her hand, Belle shook her head, "It's nothing, Ruby. Not a big deal."
There were still so many more words Ruby wish she could say, but it was like she'd run out of them and couldn't get them out anymore. It just settled heavily in her stomach until she gave up and just nodded, though guilt still swirled through her mind.
As they continued to walk, growing steadily more tired, Ruby could see that Belle was reaching her limits. There was a slump to her shoulders and a drag to her feet. If Ruby, with her heightened stamina and endurance, was starting to tire, Belle was definitely exhausted.
By the time the shelter came into view, a crowd was already starting to gather outside. The sight of so many people clumped together -in different clothes, varying from shabby to composed- was surreal to Ruby. It almost scared her to be near the crowd as they drew closer. The different scents wafted over to her, hair gel and hair spray on some who were probably a little luckier, unwashed hair for others. Body odor came from some, deodorant from others.
Most of the crowd composed of women, many of them with children. A few men were there but seemed to be leaving the crowd.
Ruby found herself feeling nervous as they reached the outside of the shelter. Her heart started to beat faster than it should and she had to remind herself not to squeeze Belle's hand too hard.
Adjusting her glasses, Ruby tried instead to focus on breathing in and out through her mouth. Slowly and deeply. It helped ground her while Belle looked for who they were supposed to talk to. The crowd seemed to be broken into smaller circles. As Ruby and Belle worked their way through, they found nuns at the center of the circles, taking the names of those hoping to spend the night at their shelter.
"Excuse me," Belle said, reaching the closest nun and trying to get her attention. "Do you still have room for two more?"
"We're getting very full," The nun answered, "This is for the waitlist now. May I have your names?"
"Lacey." Belle spoke quickly, "Lacey de Ravin and…" She glanced at Ruby. "Red… Ory."
The nun nodded, "Just wait, we'll be calling names in about an hour."
Several women groaned and whined about the wait, a few tried to reason out with the nun as she ignored them and made her way through to get back to the building.
With Belle starting to slump against Ruby, it was her turn to lead the way through the crowd until they found a spot of sidewalk just at the edge of the block. She helped sit Belle down before joining her.
"In hindsight…" Belle said, "Scarlet probably would have made more sense than just… Red."
Ruby shrugged, not sure if she was supposed to be amused by Belle's mistake or reassure her for still being quick enough on her feet to make up names for them on the spot.
Belle smiled to herself but it looked hollow while her eyes looked drained. "They were kind of just the first names to come to mind." She leaned against Ruby. "I have doubts about this working out. We're screwed if they want to confirm our identities."
What if the nuns got suspicious and called authorities? The thought of ending up back at the facility crossed Ruby's mind once more, making her already uneasy heart beat even faster. She scratched at her head before readjusting the beanie.
"We need a backup plan other than Tiana." Belle pinched the bridge of her nose. "But I just keep coming up blank."
Nothing was coming to Ruby's mind either. She still couldn't quite believe this was real. The fear of waking up in her room was still too vivid.
"I wonder if we should get dinner." Belle rested her head on Ruby's shoulder. "I'm starting to get hungry again."
The hollowness in Ruby's stomach told her she was getting hungry again too. But if they left the area to find food, they might miss out on their chance to sleep at the shelter tonight. They should probably just stay and hope for the best.
Belle's train of thought seemed to go a similar way since she said, "Maybe not. Let's just wait here, yeah?"
"Yeah."
So they waited, slumped against each other as they sat on the sidewalk.
Urgent tapping at her shoulder roused Belle from sleep she hadn't realized she'd taken. Through bleary eyes, she looked up to Ruby's distressed expression and followed it to police cars pulling up in front of the shelter, just at the edge of the crowd.
"Looking for us." Ruby whispered.
That was enough to know that they had to go somewhere else. Belle adjusted glasses that had gone askew during her nap before taking Ruby's hand and working their way through the crowd and into an alley. They got behind the shelter and down a block or so before reaching a chain link fence. Through it, they could see fields dotted with small houses. The fence was climbable in theory, but the barbed wire at the top would prove to be a problem.
"Belle." Ruby presented her back, "I'll carry you."
Glancing over her shoulder, Belle didn't see anyone going after them yet, but she thought she could hear voices over a speaker or megaphone. She wasn't sure but she vaguely heard her name and a mention of Baelfire.
It might not be long before someone observant recognizes their faces even with the precautions Belle tried to take. Returning her attention to Ruby, Belle clambered up her back, linking her arms around Ruby's neck and legs around her thin waist.
Once she was content with Belle being as secure as could be, Ruby took a few steps back. She focused on the fence, breathed in deeply, and started to charge forward.
For a moment, Belle feared they were going to fall short, but Ruby didn't disappoint. When she jumped, she easily cleared the fence and landed lightly on her feet a good couple of meters away. Without breaking her stride, Ruby kept going, running down the path.
There were moments when she would run on all fours, only to catch herself and start running upright again.
Though she was starting to breathe heavily, Ruby hadn't slowed down yet. Meanwhile, Belle was getting stiff and sore from hanging on.
It was starting to get dark as the sun began to set. The gathering clouds in the sky didn't look like good news either. Belle eyed their surroundings until she noticed an area with overgrown foliage. She indicated the area to Ruby, who turned sharply and started running there. As they drew closer, more of the area looked like it hadn't been tended to in a long time. There was hardly a path to it and Ruby ended up just powering through the tall plants.
"You can let me down." Belle said as they started to near a small house with a tattered roof, dilapidated walls and boarded up windows. The door had also been boarded up, though good chunks of it had been eaten away by termites, probably rats too.
As Ruby let Belle down, she felt her muscles crying out. She had to stiffly shake life back into them. It didn't help much because Belle found herself so tired and sore she could hardly lift her hands. But she knew she had to. They had to figure out a new plan. Trying not to wince visibly, Belle adjusted her glasses and brushed her fingers through her hair, surprised still to find the strands ending so abruptly.
"Nobody here." Ruby said, sniffing the air. "Abandoned."
Though going back to the diner and getting in contact with Tiana was a thought drifting through Belle's mind, she didn't feel inclined to involve Tiana and put her in danger. Given the measures Gold was willing to go to keep control of whoever he considered his possessions, Belle wouldn't even dare imagine what he might do to any of them or anyone who helped them if they ever got caught.
"How much trouble do you think we'd get into if we got caught squatting in there?" Belle asked.
Ruby shrugged.
Belle started to walk around the house to see if there might be another way to get inside. "Maybe not as much as if police caught us in the shelter and thought the nuns were purposely hiding us." That was another set of images she'd rather not dwell on. "Or if they found us at Tiana's." Again, not something she wanted to imagine.
They found a part of the house where the wall had started to collapse, leaving a hole Belle and Ruby could probably climb through. Inside, it looked dusty and grimy, with bits of the wall and ceiling all over a floor littered with animal droppings.
Droplets of rain starting to fall on them seemed as good a sign as any that this was where they would have to spend the night.
Belle gingerly made her way through the hole, scraping her hands and arms against splinters and nails. Wood and debris cracked and crunched underfoot as she went deeper into the house. Behind her, she heard Ruby working her way in, hissing when she scraped her skin.
At least Ruby would be able to easily heal. Belle wasn't as lucky, but after a quick inspection of her hands and arms, she figured maybe she was at least slightly lucky. The scrapes were mild since her jacket sleeves for the most part protected her skin. Only a few shallow scratches actually opened, but they weren't deep enough to worry about bleeding out.
Whether or not they were going to get infected was another story.
Rain starting to fall through the holes in the ceiling called Belle's attention back to the present. Scurrying sounds moved from one part of the room to another as any rats that had made their home here avoided their intruders. If they could just find a spot that wasn't going to be soaked or rat-invested, then they would be okay for the night.
But that was easier said than done.
They combed through the house as the rain continued to pour. Water was starting to pool on the floor in some areas and Belle was getting tired and frustrated. The living room was the most dry area, with the least holes in the ceiling. While Belle cleared away some of the debris, Ruby wedged an old door against the hole in the wall. It would keep out some of the wind and rain and also hopefully deter anyone else who might want to come in here and stay here.
"Sorry." Ruby finished up wedging the door.
Without a broom and proper materials to clear away the debris, Belle had settled with moving some away with her hand while others got swept aside by her feet. "What do you mean?"
Ruby wrung her hands together before crouching down and joining Belle. "Everything."
"Ruby?" Belle looked up. "What's this about?"
She was swallowing and licking her lips as she tried to give words to her thoughts. Belle knew better than to pressure Ruby to speak. "Take your time finding the words."
There was a slump to Ruby's shoulders as she picked up and put away broken glass. "This." Avoiding eye contact, Ruby continued to speak. "All… this."
"Ruby, it's okay." Though Ruby wasn't expressing herself clearly, Belle had a feeling this was about every hardship they'd gone through in the past couple of weeks, from learning about Ruby to the hard-hitting reality of her life to the fight to free her to the failure of their first escape attempt to the casualties of the second attempt and now to the stress and fear that came with being in hiding. "We'll get through this and it'll be worth it in the end."
"But…" Ruby turned to look at Belle. "You… got hurt."
"I don't heal as fast as you do, but I still heal." Belle tried to keep her tone light in the hope of cheering Ruby up. "And we have a Regina to help speed up our healing."
Ruby just shook her head and after that didn't seem keen on speaking anymore.
As it got darker and colder, they finished up clearing a space on the floor where they could attempt to get some rest.
Even with her heightened abilities, Ruby was clearly reaching her limits. She heavily flopped onto the floor and pulled out her hat and glasses, leaving them on top of a worn down coffee table with broken legs.
"We'll be okay." Belle said, as much to herself as to Ruby, who was rubbing at her shorn hair and wiping at her tired eyes. She yawned and nodded. She also seemed to be nodding off. Though there were still leftover negativity hanging in the air between them from the unresolved feelings Ruby couldn't properly express, Belle hoped things would feel better after some sleep.
She positioned herself against the wall, sitting with her legs crossed before gesturing for Ruby to come closer. It surprisingly didn't take much to convince her to lie down with her head in Belle's lap. Within minutes, the relaxed breathing and limp body showed that Ruby had fallen asleep. Hopefully things really would be better after some sleep. Maybe Ruby was just tired and it kicked up negative thoughts. Maybe she was going to wake up feeling better.
Maybe that could also be the case for Belle.
But as much as she tried to doze off too, she couldn't help but entertain nagging worries of how everything could go wrong. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to split up. What if the others had been discovered? What if they hadn't been as lucky at staying hidden? What if they failed to find a place to sleep? What if they were being held in cells at a police station, waiting to be transported back to the facility? What if Killian's plan failed and he had been caught?
Without any way of contacting each other, it was impossible to know what was going on. They were dependent on Aurora's ability to find them and reach them tomorrow and as much as Belle wanted to believe in the best, it was hard after seeing things go so tragically wrong. Knowing how desperate Gold must be to get them back, Belle wondered if they could ever be safe again.
It was bright and her skin felt raw from the collar and the cuffs.
Some of her memories were a blur, but not all of them. She still kept getting blasted by images of Dorothy's body buried in the bookshelf, Merida bleeding from bites and scratches, Mr. Spencer torn to shreds, classmates all over the floor, knocked around by her claws.
Trembling as she rocked back and forth on the stiff bed, Subject 204 pressed her hands against her eyes, trying to stifle her sobs and keep herself quiet.
She was a monster.
Ruby Lucas was dead.
Subject 204 was a monster.
That's who she was now. What she was now. She was the subject, and this facility, whatever it was, could do whatever it wanted to her after what she did to her friends, to her classmates, to her teacher, to Peter. The subject was a disgrace and not even Mother could fix the mess that happened.
If the subject had just listened to her mother and been a better daughter, then things would be different.
Maybe Peter would still be alive. Dorothy might still be alive. Everyone in that classroom might still be alive.
And the subject wouldn't be here in this small room, cuffs and a collar burning her skin, chains hooked up to her bed. A reinforced door with a guard posted outside. Countless layers of security kept her from the outside world of humans she could so easily kill with a swing of her hand.
This was where she belonged.
This was what she deserved.
And yet, she felt terrified. She didn't know what they were going to do to her. Didn't know how much their tests would hurt her, how much their tests would change her. If their tests would actually be able to cure her.
Would it be anything like their doctor games in the basement? Whatever the doctor games were. The subject couldn't remember how those were done anymore. She could vaguely recall chains like this one, and a scent that made her dizzy and sleepy but it soothed the headaches somehow.
And the dogs. She remembered the big dogs.
It was so hard to remember.
And so hard to ground herself.
She felt scared. She knew she killed people and she knew she deserved to be chained up and put through tests of all sorts, maybe even dissected and cut up. She knew she deserved pain and punishment, but she couldn't help feeling terrified.
On top of all of that was the guilt and pain of her murders.
The sobs were getting harder and harder to stifle as her chest tightened up and her throat clenched itself inwards. It was hard to breathe through the tears and the tightness. She wanted to disappear. To be just wiped out from this existence.
Death sounded nice right about now.
But she didn't deserve that, did she? After what she'd done? After she mauled Peter until he was just mush on the gravel and concrete? Death was probably too quick for the subject, too much of an ending to someone who deserved to be punished.
She felt awful, horrible, pained, distressed, guilty, scared…
Sad.
Very sad.
It hurt.
The door started opening. She stiffened, hurried to wipe her eyes, shuffled to the corner of her bed, curled into herself, struggled to fight back more sobs that threatened to wrench out of her. Attempts to apologize for her noise and hassle caught in her throat as another sob worked itself out of her.
Ruby sniffled and wiped her arm across her face, only to feel something in herself shatter all the more as it hit her all over again how she wasn't supposed to be Ruby Lucas anymore. She was a nobody. An inhuman creature. A murderer. A monster.
"Now, now, dearie, what's all this?" It was Dr. Gold's voice that greeted her, which was a relief. The subject wasn't sure how a guard would have responded to her. She didn't know how the guards were supposed to treat her. She just knew they kept her in cuffs and this collar. They marched her down the hallways and into this room with the bed against the wall. The metal slab with a thin cushion. No blankets, no pillows.
This was her room now.
The tears wouldn't stop flowing out no matter how hard she fought to stop them. She wiped at her face and sniffled. It just hurt so much, this heavy, sharp, stabbing pain that started in her chest and weighed her down and made her want to sink to the floor and hide under her bed.
"You're probably still adjusting, I gather." Dr. Gold had pulled up a chair and was sitting close to her bed. It was dangerous for him to be so near and she feared she would hurt him. "And that's fine, dearie."
"What…" Her voice was soft and croaky as the words worked their way out of her constricted chest and throat. "What's going to happen to me?" There was a wobble to her question but she managed to ask it without her voice breaking into sobs.
Still, it was hard not to.
She pressed her palms against her face and leaned her head back against the wall. Breathing through her mouth, she tried to just focus on inhaling and exhaling, but it just devolved into tight sobs again. A few whimpers managed to work their way out of her.
"204," Dr. Gold reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. "We're here to help."
"How?" Scrubbing her face with her hands, the subject choked back a whimper and turned to look at Dr. Gold, chin stiff, lip trembling. "How? How can I be… fixed?"
"We have to run some tests first," Dr. Gold squeezed her shoulder then sat back down on his chair. "These tests will vary but the idea will be to gain a better understanding of your condition, get a scope of your abilities and see how we can narrow that down until we can eliminate the dichotomy altogether."
The words he used were confusing and she wasn't sure she understood.
Dr. Gold clasped his hands together, "Basically, we need to run tests to understand your condition. Once we understand it, we can work to treat it. Do you understand, dearie?"
She nodded.
A smile spread over Dr. Gold's face, "That's good. Now all we'll need is your cooperation. Do as your told and the tests will run more smoothly and the cure will come along more quickly. Will you be able to do that? Cooperate?"
Knowing there was nothing she had left and nothing else she could do, she nodded again. "Yes. I promise."
"Thank you." Dr. Gold's smile widened further, his golden teeth gleaming. He leaned forward and clasped her hands. "There's no need to worry, dearie. You're under our care now."
It was still hard to breathe without sobbing, but she managed to let out a shaky exhale as she squeezed his hands. "Yeah."
Dr. Gold's hands squeezed back. "We have the means to make sure you don't hurt anyone anymore."
"Yeah…" She sniffed, "I don't… I d-don't want to hurt anyone…" another sob broke through her sentence, "…anymore."
"We'll help you with that." Dr. Gold promised. "We'll do everything we can to cure you. That, I can promise you, dearie."
With eyes still blurred from tears, she looked at him. Her voice was still unsteady, but she was able to say the words she owed him. "T-thank you." It was the least she could do. She didn't deserve to be saved or cured. But here he was, promising to help cure her.
That was more than she deserved.
Belle abruptly awoke to sharp pains in her arm. With her mind still in a half-dazed fog, she managed to process that the pain came from Ruby digging her claws into Belle's arm.
And whimpering.
There was tension in Ruby's body as she curled up, her face contorted into a look of pain and distress.
"Ruby, hey." Belle breathed through the pain of Ruby's claws, thankful for the thick layer of jacket sleeve protecting skin from being ripped open. "Wake up, it's just a dream."
It took a bit of shaking to rouse Ruby, and for a moment, she looked around, trying to ground herself in her surroundings.
"Ruby," Belle tried to keep her voice even but it came out in a hiss. "My arm."
With a gasp, Ruby released Belle's arm and crawled backwards, looking horrified.
"It's okay," Belle tried to reassure her, "I'm not hurt, it's fine."
Ruby just shook her head and moved herself farther away.
"Ruby…" Belle massaged the life back into her arm, tried to be subtle about how much it had hurt, but she probably failed at that since Ruby followed the movement with a pained expression. "I'm okay, I promise."
As she shook her head, Ruby's eyes seemed to glow yellow as the frustration started building up again. "You're not." She bared her teeth and run her hands through her hair. "You're…" She struggled to find the words, gesturing for them in the air before turning to Belle, "You should be…"
With a groan that sounded almost low enough to be a growl, Ruby rubbed at her head. "Happy!" The flailing hands started to slow until they were instead clenched into fists close to Ruby's chest. "Safe. Home. Not…"
Even in the darkness of the night, Belle could see how tightly clenched Ruby's fists were, and it worried her.
Belle wanted to interrupt and try to say something, but she stopped herself. This was a nagging thought on Ruby's mind and she wanted to express it even if finding the words was a struggle.
"Not starving. N-not… hurt." She sighed, slumping her shoulders and letting her hands fall to the floor next to her ankles. "Not here. Not… stuck with… the subject."
Her lip was trembling as she continued to speak. "Subject should be…" Ruby took a shaky breath. "…back… with Dr. Gold."
She brought her hands back up and crossed them over her knees before burying her face into them. The last few words were a soft whisper Belle had to strain to hear through the rain. "I'm not worth it."
"That's not true." Belle had to keep her voice even, raising it just because she felt strongly about this might only add to Ruby's anxiety. "You're worth all of this. All the stuff we're going through to give you freedom and happiness."
Though Ruby was shaking her head again, Belle kept going. "I don't know how things are going to go from here on out, but I do know that you deserve to be happy and free."
"Subject," Ruby's head was still pressed against her folded arms and her hands were curling into fists again. "…is a monster."
Belle inched closer to Ruby. "You made a mistake, that's a fact none of us are going to change." It was a terrible mistake that cost peoples' lives. Several of them even were just teenagers who could have had long lives ahead of them. And Merida. That was a slippery slope so steep it basically caused a whole avalanche.
Still, this wasn't about that. This wasn't a game of who Ruby hurt most and how bad of a creature Ruby was.
"You don't have to be punished for all eternity for that." Belle continued. "Your life still has value."
When Ruby lifted her head from her arms, Belle hoped that maybe it meant she was getting through. Instead, Ruby shook her head, and in a broken voice, said, "No."
"Fine, if not to you, then to me." As she said it, Belle knew that whatever anyone thought, whatever Ruby herself thought, there was value to this frightened person who was just a shell of who she used to be and who she could be. And no matter what it was going to take, Belle was going to help Ruby get there. "I'm here for you."
Ruby's eyes weren't glowing yellow anymore, but in the dim light, Belle could she how they shone with unshed tears. "Why?"
"There's so much more to you than what Gold tried to break you into." Belle said, "Than what your whole past broke you into."
The look on Ruby's face showed she was unconvinced.
Running her hands through her hair, still not used to how abruptly it ended before her shoulders, Belle tried again. "I made a commitment to be here for you and I'm going to see this through."
Ruby's brow furrowed.
"And I don't care if that means helping you relearn how to eat with utensils again," It still stabbed at Belle's heart to see how much Ruby's captivity had taken away from her. "Helping you learn how to read again. How to write again." She hadn't missed the way Ruby looked overwhelmed by the menu and settled for pointing at the pictures.
And Belle also wasn't going to forget the other little things that Ruby lost the dexterity and skill for. "I'll help you relearn how to dress yourself again," She gestured at Ruby, "How to brush your hair if it grows out if you want to grow it out." Thinking of things off the top of her head, Belle kept going, "How to cut your nails other than biting or breaking them, how to talk to people, how to buy food."
With a laugh, Belle found herself adding, "Fuck, I'll even teach you how to drive so you don't end up like fucking Aurora."
Ruby raised an eyebrow at that and looked like a ghost of a smile was pulling at her lips.
"Look, don't get me wrong. I love her and she's a great person and a great friend." Belle let another bubble of laughter pop out of her before she continued, "But she can't drive for shit." Though Belle really wasn't one for swearing a lot, it felt good to let it through every so often. Like now.
"Ruby, I'm going to help you be the best fucking driver on the planet so you can go wherever the hell you want."
Realizing she was starting to raise her voice, Belle tried to regain her composure, but her heightened sense of excitement still came through, "I want you to be able to go wherever you want. Anywhere."
As she started to reach the peak of her excitement, Belle felt herself toppling over as a realization hit her. "With or without me."
And the thought of being without Ruby hit Belle harder than she could have imagined or expected. After spending so much time and energy focused on learning about Ruby and planning to set her free, the thought of being apart from her was jarring. There was just this deep pain to imagining a reality without working on something that had something to do with Ruby. A reality where Ruby could stand on her own.
But that was also a reality that Belle wanted more than anything. A reality that Ruby deserved more than anything.
"I want you to be able to stand without me, because Gold took that away from you." Belle said, looking Ruby in the eye and seeing a confused mess of emotions in those green depths. "I want you to be you."
Ruby's brow furrowed. "Me?"
"You." Belle repeated. "Not Subject 204. Not Gold's Ruby or your mother's Ruby or even…" Stumbling over saying it, Belle knew she had to. "Not even… well… my Ruby."
The expression on Ruby's face was hard to read, but she didn't look like she was trying to speak, so Belle kept going. "I want you to be your Ruby. Ruby's Ruby."
"Ruby's Ruby?"
Belle nodded. "Yeah. Then… then you can decide for yourself if you want to be with anyone." A part of Belle felt strange about the thought of Ruby being with anyone. It sickened her to imagine some guy trying to control Ruby's life all over again and manipulating her and owning her.
If it ever came to that, Belle knew that she was going to protect Ruby and keep anyone like that from breaking her down again.
"I mean yeah, when… you're ready. I guess." Belle tried to hide the cringe she felt at the thought of being the kind of person who would try to screen anyone trying to date Ruby. That was… weird. And wrong. And totally went against the whole concept of Ruby learning to be her own person. "I don't know. Just… I just…"
Belle leaned her head back and sighed. "I Just want you to be the person you have the potential to be. The person you could have been if this shit storm never hit you."
"Really?" Ruby's voice was soft, but heavy with emotion. Heavy with the weight of everything Belle had just said.
"That's all I want for you." Belle said. "That's-"
A hand clamped over Belle's mouth. It happened so fast, that it took some moment of processing her surroundings for Belle to realize it was Ruby's hand and Ruby who was pressed up close.
"Someone outside," was Ruby's whispered explanation.
Though Belle could hardly hear anything through the wind and rain, she trusted Ruby's senses and nodded. They both moved as quietly as they could, retrieving their accessories and starting to inch their way deeper into the house and away from the road.
Belle could see a flashlight moving around outside and she did start to hear the footsteps as well. Ruby crouched down in the kitchen and pressed herself against the wall. Belle followed suit. They waited for the person to pass.
But he didn't.
His flashlight shown through one of the boarded up windows. "I know you're in there. Your tracks are all over the place."
Belle exchanged a glance with Ruby.
"Now you'd better come out of there because you're trespassing." It was a man's voice. "Don't make me charge you for resisting arrest, too."
Shit.
Looking over at Ruby, Belle hoped one of them could come up with a plan to get out of this situation safely.
The echoing bang of a gunshot filled Belle's ears, and she saw that Ruby panicked, hurrying back towards the room with the hole they came in through. Belle followed after her, only for them both to find themselves in front of the door that Ruby had wedged against the wall.
Another several gun shots rang in her ears, almost drowning out the rain.
They both ducked down, but Belle felt a rush of emotion she couldn't quite place.
This wasn't how things were supposed to turn out. Couldn't the universe at least cut them some slack for once in their lives? The stray thought surprised Belle as she backed away from where the cop was trying to get in.
There was a banging sound as the he kicked the door backwards and worked his way through the hole in the wall.
It was a tighter fit for a big man with broad shoulders and massive arms, but a warning shot from his gun just barely missed Ruby and they knew better than to try bolting while he forced his way through.
"Keep your hands up or the next bullet is through one of your skulls." The aggression to his approach would have made Belle doubt if he was actually a cop, but the uniform he wore made Belle pause. That and what she could make out as a police car's lights along the road.
By the time the cop made his way through, he pointed his gun and his flashlight at them.
The beam shone too brightly in their faces. Belle squinted against it and felt anger boiling deep within her. It was a strong, burning feeling that surprised her. Frustration was bubbling up instead of fear at the sight of a gun pointed at them and a flashlight blinding them.
Ruby, with her hands still up, started to move in front of Belle, in an effort to protect her in case the cop fired his gun again.
"DON'T MOVE!" The cop noticed, his finger dangerously close to pulling the trigger again.
There was a hitch to Ruby's breath, but she reluctantly stopped moving.
Belle didn't want Ruby to get hurt again. Didn't want them to go through even worse shit than they were already in. Didn't want Ruby to end up back in that facility all over again. Didn't want Gold to undo what little progress they'd already started to make. Didn't want Ruby to once again go back to being Gold's favorite little Subject 204.
Squinting at the light, Belle could vaguely make out a heavy jaw, a hooked nose and a thin mustache. She gritted her teeth and bit back a string of retorts, worked on composing herself first.
"We just needed a place to stay." Belle managed to keep her voice soft, scared. Hiding the burning frustration she was feeling instead. "We mean no harm. We'll leave now."
Another gunshot made Belle's heart skip a beat.
"Shut up or I'm placing one between your eyes." The cop growled, keeping the flashlight and gun pointed at them.
His aggression and the dangerous way he handled his gun made Belle furious. She wanted to yell at him and reprimand him for being such a trigger-happy asshole who practically came off like a carbon copy of Gaston. Couldn't they just calmly talk through things instead of threatening to terminate anything that moved in a way that didn't please them?
"Don't any of you move a fucking muscle." The cop drew closer to them, "You, the dyke. Don't try anything." He moved towards Ruby first, taking her wrists and handcuffing them behind her back before roughly shoving her down to her knees. "Stay there."
As the cop moved towards her, Belle tried again to reason with him even if she wanted nothing more than to lash out and take her mounting frustration out on him. "Please, just let us go. We didn't mean any harm."
Pain exploded by the side of Belle's face before she found herself on the floor, cheek throbbing. "What did I say about shutting up?"
Then Ruby took action, breaking the cuffs without blinking, shoving the cop away from Belle, picking her up and charging out through the now wider opening in the wall.
Seeing Belle hurt all over again had been the last straw. Ruby was scared and wanted to cooperate with the authorities and maybe lessen the trouble they were going to be drowning in. But the moment she saw the cop strike Belle down, that was it. Breaking the handcuffs had been easy. They were nothing like the cuffs designed to restrain a lycanthrope.
And from there, it was easy to pull the cop away and pick Belle up.
But now, they were running blindly through the fields and in the rain. The stupid glasses weren't helping. All they did was catch the rain and blur her vision. On top of that, it irritated her nose.
Belle seemed to notice Ruby's struggle and removed the glasses for her.
Though the rain still kept getting in her eyes, it was a huge improvement and Ruby had a better view of where she was going. Lightning and thunder made her heart skip beats, almost tempting her to just stop running and hide in the areas where there were tall plants and grass.
Until Belle pointed out a cluster of trees, "Maybe we could stop there?"
Ruby changed course and started making her way there, already starting to feel tired again. She was stronger and faster than this. She knew she was, based on the tests they had run on her when she was at the facility. But she was probably still weak from the full moon. And hungry. And sleep hadn't exactly been restful.
By the time she reached the trees, Ruby was breathing heavily. Still, she put Belle down as gently as possible.
It didn't provide much cover from the wind, and droplets of rain still came through the leaves, but it was probably the best they could do. And maybe the rain would stop soon.
Ruby settled herself at the base of the tree and leaned her back against it. Belle joined in.
It still scared Ruby to have Belle so close by, and it was terrifying to know how close she'd come to having her arm broken or ripped off or torn into, just because Ruby had let herself get too relaxed, too careless, too caught up in her dreams and memories. It just wasn't safe.
But it felt soothing, too. The warmth of Belle's body, the light weight to her leaning against Ruby, the sound of her breathing in and out, the scent that was just Belle.
Everything about Belle was both frightening and soothing. It was a clashing, conflicted feeling that Ruby couldn't quite figure out. She wanted them to be close to each other and she wanted Belle's help with learning all the stupid simple things that Ruby could no longer do on her own. But she also wanted to be distanced from Belle because being with the subject was dangerous. Being anywhere near the subject always came with the risk of getting hurt.
And everything that had happened in the last few weeks had only led to hardship, pain, terror and trauma for Belle.
She was supposed to be a brilliant scientist, that's what Gold said, wasn't it? Belle had a lot of potential and the subject just kept ruining everything for her, distracting her and veering her off the course she was meant to go. Whatever career Belle could have had was probably destroyed thanks to the subject.
"What's on your mind?" Belle asked.
"You." The subject answered. "Me." She pulled off the hat and rubbed her head. "Gold."
"It's all going to be worth it." Belle clasped their hands, intertwining their fingers. "Just remember what I said. About how some day, you're going to come into your own and be Ruby's Ruby. We'll work our way towards that."
Too tired to argue, the subject just nodded. "Okay."
What did that mean, anyway?
She was still working on trying to call herself Ruby again. Trying to think of herself as Ruby and not as the subject. Trying to think of herself as human and not a monster. The whole concept of being Ruby's Ruby was strange after spending so long as Gold's possession. If anything, it was almost comforting to think of herself as Belle's Ruby. She was more than willing to protect Belle and do whatever she wanted to repay her for how she had been such a big part of liberating the subject.
She was more than willing to protect and serve the whole team that helped set her free of the facility.
Belle didn't seem to want that.
And it was such an alien thought.
The subject didn't know how to belong to herself. Ruby never really knew how to belong to herself either. Before the facility, she had always been her mother's daughter. Sometimes she was Peter's girlfriend or Dorothy's best friend. But she never really was… Ruby's Ruby.
What did that even mean?
Ruby doubted she was ready to figure out the answer to that, but she couldn't help wondering. She chewed on the thought and thought about if it might mean being able to drive and go anywhere she wanted, like what Belle said. Did it mean being able to get a job and provide for herself? Did it mean being able to sleep through the night without waking up digging her nails into Belle's arm? Did it mean being able to eat food without making a humiliating mess of herself? Did it mean being able to pay for that food on her own?
Thinking of all the things she was going to have to learn to do made Ruby anxious. She didn't know how she was going to accomplish any of that. There was so much she still needed to learn and she had no clue how she was going to start.
When the urge to dig her claws into her palms kicked in, Ruby remembered her hand was intertwined with Belle's.
Belle promised she would help Ruby.
She was going to help Ruby figure out how to stand on her own and be… Ruby's Ruby. And everything that entailed.
Something was off.
The feeling interrupted Ruby's train of thought as the rain started to die down and the sky started to lighten. She looked around, feeling like they weren't alone. It was almost like a figure kept hovering just at the edge of her vision.
"Ruby?" Belle must have fallen asleep while Ruby was deep in thought. There was a grogginess to Belle as she sat up and looked around. "What's up?"
"I'm glad you two are okay."
Ruby stiffened at the sound of Aurora's voice, somehow in their heads but still also outside of them. It was a bizarre feeling of hearing it in her head and hearing it with her ears. That was accompanied by the just as odd feeling of sensing Aurora more than seeing her.
"Aurora, you won't believe how glad I am to hear your voice again." Belle was awake now, leaning forward and speaking clearly. "We've had a rough night."
"Yeah, it feels like you did." Aurora's sympathy drifted over them as she sensed their tiredness. "Killian was able to get the Dunbroch parents and triplets settled into the hideout, but he still has to arrange to come and pick us up."
"That's the good news." Belle raised an eyebrow, "Why do I feel like there's a but."
There was a feeling of sheepishness and discomfort, almost accompanied by the image of Aurora wringing her hands and fidgeting with her hair. "We might have to make our way west to the next town. Emma enjoyed her alcohol a little too much last night and kind of drew attention to herself."
A hazy image of Emma at a bar with Neal and Regina passed through their minds, but it was too foggy to make out the details and Aurora didn't want to dwell on it too much. She instead had them picture Williamsport some distance away from here. "We might want to move farther away from this general area. There also may have been some reports about the two of you. Neal's been tampering with police scanners and databases so there's nothing really on record, but that doesn't change the fact that some people encountered some of us."
"How are we supposed to travel without a vehicle though?" Belle asked, pushing up her glasses so she could pinch the bridge of her nose. "I'm starting to really miss my car."
"We can't use the same truck from when we broke out of the facility." Aurora seemed to sense Belle's judgement on questionable driving skills, because there was almost a bitter taste to her messages after that. "There are pictures and reports of that truck from when we got away, which by the way I did manage to drive in order to get us safely away from Baelfire."
"Yes, you did." Belle bottled up her exasperation. "I appreciate that. I'm sorry."
Aurora seemed to huff before continuing. "If you still have money from what I gave you, maybe paying a cab extra would be an option? Or you could be charming and hitch a ride."
"We'll figure something out." Belle sounded doubtful. "So we'll meet at Williamsport?"
"Yeah." Aurora answered. "Tomorrow morning."
That meant another night with no clue where to stay.
Note 2: Lol fun fact Belle's concept of Ruby's Ruby was kind of taken from a drunk speech I gave my friend a few weeks ago. It was because she was having boy troubles after breaking up with a man who controlled her life for seven years. WHEW.
I'll see when I can update again but hopefully within a week again. I also want to get some other things done and get my life back in order lol. But yeah, I hope you're enjoying the ride so far. THE SAFEHOUSE IS JUST SO CLOSE TO THEIR FINGERTIPS NOW WE JUST HAVE TO HANG IN A LITTLE LONGER.
