Summary: "…she slips away in the night, with a short message to Red—I'm going on an adventure. By the time the werewolf gets the tea-stained letter, the beauty once faded is now halfway out the realm."
An update?! *le gasp* I know it's so sudden, but I was inspired by these lovely lyrics. Not a big fan of the song, okay, I admit, but the lyrics are absolutely gorgeous.
Oh, and this is also AU. Rumple never got captured by the Charmings, and the curse is never cast.
Disclaimer: I don't own OUAT, or the song.
Cross Our Hearts
I'll see you in the future when we're older-
and we are full of stories to be told.
Cross my heart and hope to die;
I'll see you with your laughter lines.
[Laughter Lines, Bastille]
(when she was still a girl, she fell in love with a monster, and tamed him with tales from her head. she sat with him when the lonely nights got too much, when the big, bad beast needed a hand to hold. and she told him stories—fantastic stories about good and evil, about how not everything was as black and white as the world sometimes seemed. she tamed the beast's broken heart that way, made him into a man.
and then came the queen.
and the girl was forced into a woman.)
They come at midnight, the enemy's men.
They storm the castle, which is either extremely brave or very stupid—she can't exactly decide which, yet. Does the man behind this siege really think the hundred or so fairies and a couple dozen half-trained knights she sees through her cell window can stop Regina's men? Regina herself? Maybe they can search and rescue with a ragtag party like that, but conquer and destroy? Belle is doubtful.
(once upon a time, maybe she would've been hopeful; but that hope is gone, faded, dashed and shattered into a thousand million trillion stars that don't quite light her dreams up any more)
She lays there, in her cold, dank cell, listening to the cries of dying men outside, the clash of swords, the tinkling whisper of magic shooting across the air. There is silence for half a moment, before the pounding of boots against stone gets progressively louder and someone throws her cell door open. She lifts her eyes to the person in the doorway, squinting against the bright torchlight behind them.
There is a girl, there, her eyes wide and dark and just a little wild. She looks wary, though, and rightfully so. Belle supposes she must look a right terror—matted brown curls that haven't been washed for the better part of six years; blue eyes that have long-since been drained of their light. She is a shell, now, the shell of the girl she used to be.
Still, that fragile shell summons up enough strength to pull herself upright, empty blue eyes meeting startled brown ones. "Hello," she says, and she can hardly recognize her voice, so rusty is it with misuse.
This seems to snap the dark-eyed girl out of it. She rushes inside, concern etched on her features, giving Belle a chance to reassess her. She's had so few people enter her chambers in the better part of the last decade, she's gotten good at seeing everything about a person at a glance. She knows from infrequent visits that the Queen is tainted, tattered innocence, a once-pure soul as dark and complex as the dresses she wears. She knows that Graham, the Huntsman, is quiet and lonely, angry but cunning, shown by the slope of his shoulders and the gentleness of his movements and the intelligence in his eyes. He is as trapped as the wolves he'd befriended, but knows better than to run.
Anyone who runs never gets very far. It took Belle one unfortunate fall out of her cell window to realize that.
The girl before her is something strange—something Belle's not accustomed to. She's so used to the jeering, leering, stung and brokenhearted false queen and her subjects with their broken souls that this one—this little lady in her red velvet cloak with her large, gentle brown eyes and her sweet, sympathetic smile—is so unfamiliar. She shies away from the strange girl, curling in on herself, shielding herself from the kindness she'd been deprived of for too many years.
The girl's sweet smile falters. "Hey—it's okay," she murmurs, gently, lifting a hand to touch Belle's. "It's okay—you're safe, now. We're gonna get you out of here, okay?" She fiddles a bit with a ring of stolen keys, making quick work of Belle's ball and chain. "Come with me." She reaches out a hand.
Belle takes it.
"Tell me a story."
"You're kidding, aren't you?"
"No, dearie. I most certainly am not. Tell me a story."
She's so shocked at the odd request she can't even find a plausible argument. So she sighs, shakes her head, and takes a seat across from him in the cavernous library.
"Once upon a time…"
The girl's name is Red, Belle soon learns, on the long ride back to Prince James'—that's his name, James, the man who plundered and raided and killed the castle and its queen—kingdom. Most of the prisoners the Queen had taken had fallen back into the shadows or had scurried in an opposite direction, back to their villages and hopefully, their families.
Belle is one of the few who don't have anywhere to go, who stick with James's ragtag group of revolutionists because there's nowhere else.
Well, there is one place else, she tells Red reluctantly, as they stagger through the wyldwoods.
(she's just not sure if she's ready to face the man who waits there.)
"I think I've heard this story before."
She looks up, smiling, only halfway down the first page of The Snow Queen. "Undoubtedly you have," she says dryly, rolling her eyes, "It's in your collection, and I wouldn't be surprised if you've read your way through every volume in here."
He laughs, shaking his head. "No. I mean I've heard it before. I lived it. The girl, Gerda, she wrote it, gifted it to me after I helped her find her little boyfriend. It's been years, but I'm surprised I didn't notice sooner."
He only laughs harder when her jaw drops and she gapes at him.
She is questioned extensively by the king's guard, taken away only when Red snaps that she's been through enough.
Belle is really starting to like the other girl.
She tells her as much when all the hoopla dies down, when the prisoners depart and so do the soldiers, and it's just two girls, one broken and one chipped in a little clearing just outside the little tents littering the grounds.
"Six years, you said you were with her. You didn't need those soldiers breathing down your neck. I can't imagine what you've been through."
Belle shrugs, looking at the dying embers in the remains of their fire. She thinks of the long, lonely days, the simpering and the jeering, the growling threats and the cold metal of a pirate's hook slamming against her skull.
"No," she says softly, "I suppose you can't."
He comes home, late one night, covered in blood.
She rushes to him, opens her mouth to ask what the hell happened. He's injured, she can see that easily, but he shakes his head and waves her off with the smallest wince as he settles down into his armchair. She goes red with indignation and her heart beats faster in her chest. "Rumpelstiltskin, your wounds—"
But he cuts her off with a quick, pleading glance. No golden-eyed glares or silencing stares. Just pleading, begging, praying for her to not say anything. He nods to the battered, worn book of folktales they've been picking their way through, these past few weeks.
"Please," he whispers, and the word sounds so foreign on his lips, she has to comply.
She grabs the book of stories and settles down next to him, and he doesn't complain about lack of personal space. She reads about goblins and witches and a misunderstood dragon while he heals himself, eventually curling into her side, lying his head on her shoulder. He doesn't sleep often, but tonight he seems to need it.
She weeps while he dreams.
She meets Queen Snow three days later, who is every bit as kind and gentle as the stories foretold. Red gives the woman—who, Belle can see as she approaches, is heavily pregnant—a large hug, carefully avoiding her extended belly.
"Snow, this is Belle. She was found in one of the towers."
Belle knows Red doesn't mean to be malicious with the news, but the word "tower" strikes a memory in her, one of a debonair pirate and his heavy not-hand and simpering Queens, taunts of beasts and threats of scourges and flaying.
Snow White gives her an empathetic look, laced heavily with worry. She knows what it's like, to be the subject of the Evil Queen's scorn, and it's never good. Six years under her cruelty would be too much, even for the strongest mind. She's wary of Belle, the jaded, faded beauty can easily see that. And she's right to. She could be half mad, for all any of them know. Red is the only one who's ever truly been friendly to her, and that's probably only because everyone knows she can take care of herself.
Belle half expects Snow to order her to be evaluated by one of the medics or shamans, or to have the Blue Fairy test her goodness, but instead she just shakes her head and pulls her in for an embrace. "I am so sorry," she murmurs.
And Belle nods, because she knows she is.
They always seem to come back to one book in particular.
That book of folktales and legends. It's full of myths that one may have found controversial, especially in her homeland, what with the talk of magic and the emphasis on Good versus Evil.
"What is Evil, anyway?" she asks him one day in the middle of reading, looking up with a curiously naive look in her bright blue eyes.
He merely shakes his head. She's far too innocent for her own good.
She stays at the palace for a few days, slowly coming out of her hastily-crafted and quickly-breaking shell and falling back into her old role as the princess, the lady, the royal, the socialite. She becomes fast friends with Snow and Red and the rest of Prince James's War Council—she talks books with Jiminy and babysits little Pinocchio when Gepetto's overwhelmed with work. She gets into spats with the Blue Fairy over the overused terms of "Good" and "Evil", of the people she seems to brand, the love she seems to find faith in.
She rekindles a friendship with Dream—or, oops, Grumpy, and his band of brothers. She is taught combat by Snow and tracking by Red, sword-fighting by James himself.
They track down two of her old traveling partners—Mulan and Phillip, and their new companion, Phillip's betrothed Aurora—and they join the Council, as well. She stays in the realm for a year and a half, long enough to gain stable ground and her courage, long enough to see the Princess Emma be born. Everything is perfect—she has friends and the potential for family, what with the long list of suitors vying for the hand of the mysterious young beauty who'd been rescued from the clutches of an evil witch.
(she bats those idiots away with her cutting wit and odd words)
She is strange, but she is loved, and she would have so much potential if she just stayed. But something is missing, something none of those suitors can adequately fill.
So she slips away in the night, with a short message to Red—I'm going on an adventure.
By the time the werewolf gets the tea-stained letter, the beauty once faded is now halfway out the realm.
It's always the same story over and over.
A dragon and a princess and a knight, true love's kiss and a monster getting his happy ending.
He wonders if it's impossible for fiction to become fact.
She dodges ogres, outwits trolls, stumbles on a seaport village and helps a sweet, albeit single-minded prince find love in the form of a mute young mermaid. She dances with nymphs and rides across the water, adventuring in ways only storybook characters would ever know how. She finds herself alone at night, huddled against a tree and crying from hunger or exposure or loneliness, missing Red and Snow and James, missing the man she lost almost a decade before.
The man she's finally managed to fight back to.
The journey's been nice, she has to admit. But the destination is arriving, and her heart is hammering as she rides her horse—a large, furry beast she'd named Philippe (his eyes are the same shade as Phillip's, and she still laughs when she thinks about it) up to the Dark Castle's wrought-iron gates. She slaps the beast on the rear and watches ruefully as he gives her a wary look before shooting away in the other direction.
He's a smart horse, Philippe. He knows something's not right about this place, and he's wary of leaving her here by herself.
But still, he rides away, instinct taking over as he shoots down the manmade path and back down to the safety of the village.
He finds the book, days after she leaves. It's still sitting on the table in their little corner of the library, close to the fire, gathering dust. If she'd stayed, they would have been on the last page of the dragon-story. If she stayed, they would have been able to finish it for the fifth time, now.
If she'd stayed.
He created this castle by magic—it's a part of him, every acre of land, every tree and rosebush, every inch of the peeling paint in the masonry. He can tell when someone enters his domain.
And someone has.
His blackened heart, (broken and achy as he sits and mulls over a long-lost book of folktales that had somehow found it's way back into his bedchamber) swells at the thought of a new deal, and he rises with giddy eagerness, swooping out of the library and into the Main Hall. Not a very grand entrance, sure, but he's not quite in the mood for his usual routine of appearing-and-disappearing today. He opens the grand double-doors, expecting a simpering princess or a righteous knight or hell, even a dying old woman.
What he doesn't expect is Belle, his sweet, lovely Belle, porcelain cheeks darkened with dirt and grime, her curly hair tossed back by a ribbon, eyes shining with mirth and wisdom. She has laughter lines, now, and crinkles in her eyes that hadn't been there before. She's older, wiser, but she's still her.
"Hello," she says, breathlessly, her lips pulling into a wide, true grin. "I can't wait to tell you my new story."
Ugh okay so Belle's part of the story seemed kinda weird to me, maybe because she wasn't really thinking about Rumple? I dunno. Anyway, tell me what you think, if you liked it, what I could improve upon if you didn't, etcetera, etcetera.