Thank you for the reviews, My Sweets!
Enjoy!
Songs: And We Run by Within Temptation, You Always Believed by In This Moment
"Distract me," Ruby rasped.
Belle raised her head from where she'd been silently crying against her arm. She adjusted the position of the shackles above her head and allowed her wrists to take the weight of her arms. For the first time in perhaps her entire life, not one solitary useless fact flitted through her mind. Anger grew at her helplessness. If she called on her life force, she risked harming their baby in her belly, and now her mind failed her, too. Disgust at her shortcomings swelled.
"I think this might be the first time since I first picked up a book as a child that I have absolutely no thoughts in my head," Belle voiced her frustration. At least she responded, she reminded herself.
Ruby chuckled, coughed, swallowed audibly. "This might be the first time my wolf has been absolutely useless." She wheezed and gasped for breath, and Belle averted her gaze from her lover's suffering. Ruby wouldn't last much longer if he left her hanging. She was slowly suffocating to death, but not once did she cry out. She protected her and their baby.
"Tell me… about Belle… Gunness," Ruby gasped, too tired to raise her eyes to Belle's anymore.
Belle snorted, a sad smile spreading. "I actually misinformed you. She wasn't the first woman hung, that was Lavinia Fisher. Gunness was never found," Belle corrected her very rare mistake.
Ruby cracked a smile without looking up. "Not like you," she whispered.
"It these damn pregnancy hormones. My thoughts get scrambled. You know what is absolutely, disgustingly intolerable? Licking the glue on envelopes. Never have I even paused to consider it before. Now the thought makes me sick," Belle ranted. The words flowed, so she allowed them to push Ruby's lips into a bigger smile.
"Elizabeth," Ruby chuckled.
"For a girl?" The wolf nodded. "Elizabeth Brunetta?" Ruby's brow furrowed. "My mother's name. She swore it absolutely vulgar in its pomposity and wanted her daughters to have simple yet beautiful names. Mine is both simple and literally means beautiful."
"Love it," Ruby consented to the name. She'd spent the last ten minutes of the first torture session thinking of names, but the only one that popped into her brain was her grandmother's.
Belle leaned her hot cheek on her arm and smiled up at her lover. "I thought a lot about what to name him if he turns out to be a boy. We've got to get some guys in our family. The girl power is wonderful, but poor Henry is totally alone." She laughed, and Ruby snorted.
"Daniel," Belle said softly, trusting her sensitive ears. "If Regina consents. I doubt she and Emma will have anymore children, and I think it's important to remember everyone we've lost. That, and I want her to know that I've truly forgiven her."
Ruby raised her head, meeting her gaze. Tears shimmered in those beautiful brown eyes. A glimmer of hope and determination rose beneath the salty droplets. "Daniel Peter."
Belle smile through a short, wet laugh. "Poor boy will have three first names," she poked lightheartedly. A twinge in her heart stole the momentary relief, and her gaze dropped.
"Do you ever compare me to him?" She asked and then immediately wished to take the words back. Peter and Red experienced something far different from her and Rumpel. Had the wolf not taken over that night, she and Ruby would never have stood a chance. In her heart, the nagging dread in the back of her mind told her that she and Rumpel were destined for disaster from the start, probably because she'd identified with him to avoid punishment.
"Don't," Ruby warned, her voice harsh and hollow and raspy.
Belle dropped her gaze again. "I'm sorry. That's not fair."
"Don't," Ruby repeated and shook her head. "You're it, Belle. He loved a girl." Ruby puffed and growled in frustration. "You love a woman. I was innocent to him." Puff. Gasp. "Something to be protected. You…"
"I love the darkness you were born with," Belle finished, and Ruby nodded. "I always will, Ruby. You're the perfect paradox, and I get to spend the rest of my life figuring you out. A dark soul with a pure heart."
Belle's chin quivered when Ruby's head dropped again. She felt the despair, ghosts of the physical pain her lover endured. They were linked, and no matter how far she teleported, that simple fact remained. She'd rather die right here, if this day indeed had decided that.
"Do you think Regina and Emma have found Am… a mention of our absence?" She mercifully spared Ruby of that knowledge. Amelia probably bled to death on the floor of the loft while Jacob forced her to his SUV in the middle of the day across the street from Granny's.
Ruby nodded, too exhausted or pained to detect the tiny slip. "They'll come." Ruby shifted on the hook. Silence stretched. Ruby wheezed. Belle prayed. Crickets outside the cellar chirped and sang.
"I always knew he was different, Jacob," Ruby broke the tiny creatures' symphony. "He was an odd child."
"A psychopath?" Belle asked, and Ruby nodded. "Not all of them become killers. Had his childhood been normal, he may never have taken a single life. He seems incredibly sophisticated, and I imagine if you spoke with other soldiers in his unit, they'll confirm stories of undue cruelty to captives or overkill on the battlefield. He's had practice, though his methodology is still all over the place."
Ruby's brow furrowed again, so Belle continued, "Usually a pattern emerges, a signature, but aside from The Council and you, he's stuck with fire, explosives. He's experienced, but he's still searching for what motivates him sexually. I think he found it when he cut you."
Ruby raised her head again. "I'm really sorry that you know all of that."
Belle shrugged and adjusted her hands above her head again, trying to stimulate blood flow. "I'm sorry that I know half of what I know. Knowledge of the world is powerful, but sometimes understanding the people in that world chills me to my bones." She met Ruby's eyes.
"He won't stop after you. You do know that right? He's finally found his sexual release, and he will not stop. So, if you have some moronic notion of martyrdom, dismiss it immediately," she schooled her lover on the inner workings of serial killers.
Ruby hummed. "I'm not a martyr," she ground out. Anger flared, her wolf, her comfort, her very own doppelganger of which she remained constantly aware.
"Ruby, what are you doing?" Belle demanded.
Ruby raised her head and grinned. "Not being a martyr." She grabbed the chain attached to her shackle with her left hand and jerked violently.
She bit back a cry of pain to whimper so as not to alert their resident psychopath. Her right hand rested near the hook, and her lungs finally filled with a deep breath. Belle held her own as Ruby simply breathed deeply for a few moments. She glanced up and wiggled the shackle on her right wrist until the edge caught on the hook.
With bulging veins, she lifted her entire weight in a one arm pull-up with her left hand, taking the pressure from her right wrist. Her right hand freed, ripping ruined flesh from her wrist. Trembling fingers wrapped around the neck of the hook, and she switched the weight to her right hand, using the left to pull the chain free of the huge meat hook.
Belle gasped when she dropped to the floor on wobbling legs. She used the clasp of the shackle to cut the tape around her legs. The shaking limbs gave out once finally free, and Ruby caught herself on hands and knees. She laughed, puffing dirt from the floor onto her naked chest. Blood rushed to her arms, pulsing sharp aches into the joints of her fingers and wrist.
"Dumb bastard, don't you know you can't contain a wolf during wolf's time," Ruby mocked their tormentor.
She pushed herself upright and staggered to Belle, catching herself on her lover's voluptuous hips. "Hi," she said.
"Hi," Belle returned and accepted Ruby's lips against her own.
The chains of the shackles clanked against each other. Ruby grabbed the chain, tapped her wolf, and yanked. Dust and chunks of mortar and concrete spilled over them, coating their hair and bodies in chalky particles. They smiled at each other and met for another kiss, rolling aching numb shoulders.
Ruby disappeared quickly and snagged the gun from the table, ignoring the fact that the next pull of the trigger may have killed her lover. Belle accepted its weight in one hand and her lovers in the other. The shackles remained for Regina's magical fingers when they reached town.
Adrenaline surged as they moved as one unit towards the stairs. Ruby growled in frustration when they hit an invisible barrier at the bottom of the stairs. She dropped Belle's hand and pounded the sides of her fists on the invisible wall. A howl ripped from her throat and echoed in the environment outside.
A dark chuckle bounced back from the top of the stairs. "That was a lot faster than I anticipated. Beat that thing all you want. You won't break Amelia's potion. I can come and go, sort of like Emma can leave town without consequence, but you, alas, must remain within."
"How about bullets?" Belle stepped in front of Ruby and pulled the trigger.
Jacob fell away with a cry of pain, blood oozing from his shoulder. He scrambled from the entrance like a crab with a broken pincher and fell to the ground to hold his shoulder. "You shot me, you crazy bitch!"
Belle bristled. "Seriously, Merrick? You're holding us hostage and playing Russian Roulette with my body, and we're crazy? It's no wonder Peter abandoned you!" She aimed the words towards his heart, the one thing she knew riled him, and held the gun steady. Angry people blurred to sloppy people.
His head peeped over the side and then disappeared immediately after glimpsing the gun. Ruby stared at her partner in shock and awe. Belle knew exactly which buttons to stomp, tapping her own psychopathy. Her genius often intimated an emotional disconnect from the world and the people in it, but Ruby knew differently. She understood Belle processed emotions through facts and theories and words rather than emotions.
Emotions were her department.
"Belle, are you okay to watch the door? I'm going to try and get my shackles off," Ruby explained. Belle nodded and settled into a wide stance with her forearms resting against her hips, muscles tensed and relaxed at the same time.
Ruby stumbled to the table, instruments clattering as she caught herself on the rickety table. Belle rolled her eyes. "Sit down and do it."
"I'm fine," she protested, not sure she'd be able to stand again if she rested her weary body.
"Ruby Elizabeth Lucas, sit your ass down. You just endured at least 45 minutes of electrocution without making a peep aside from heavy breathing to keep a gun from being fired at me. I'm pregnant, not an invalid. It's my turn to keep you safe. So sit down and rest before I knock you on your ass." Belle's temper flared, and she lit into the obstinate wolf with the same fierceness she had Jacob.
Ruby grinned, grabbed the scalpel, and plopped down in front of the wall. The cold concrete bit at her scarred back. Eventually, her body would be nothing but one giant scar. "I suppose you're resisting the urge to tell me exactly how electrocution affects the human body."
Belle snorted. "Don't be petulant," she warned. "And yes, I might tell you exactly what I was thinking while I watched a psycho torture you. Seizures, muscle spasms, organ damage, bone fracturing, teeth shattering, ventricular fibrillation, cardiac arrest, brain death."
"Ventricular what now?" Ruby halted the rant before Belle forgot to breathe. She hated that her partner knew all of that, too. She truly, truly did.
"Ventricular fibrillation. It's an uneven pumping of the heart chambers, which leads to a hundred other problems, one of which being a heart attack," Belle explained, her voice voiding the emotions she'd felt during the event. That felt familiar, a lot like her time spent as Storybrooke's protector from Pan's people. Dissociate to survive because she lacked the ability to properly process her emotions.
Ruby sensed her dark thoughts and pulled them back to a safer topic for the moment. They could break down later. "So, what's up with the baby? How many weeks are you?"
"Around 10. Addison can confirm that when I see her. Not many obstetricians will even consider an appointment beyond confirming pregnancy until at least eight to ten weeks, so I haven't had a sonogram yet. Plus, I sort of wanted to share that with you." She softened and glanced at the wolf picking at the shackle lock with the scalpel.
"So, does it have, like, fingernails?" Ruby asked, squinting up at her from the dusty floor.
"Uhh, they usually form around week 12, around the start of the second trimester. It should have a developing neural tube, which becomes the spinal cord, and a mouth and nose and eyes and ears and arms and legs," Belle informed her ignorant but insatiably curious lover.
Ruby loved learning, but she rarely picked up a book. That never stopped her from asking ten thousand questions a day that Belle happily answered, overjoyed to share her knowledge. The thought suddenly slapped her in the face that perhaps Ruby never searched for the knowledge independently because she wanted Belle to feel normal and confident the only way she knew how now that she sported a huge scar on her face. Ruby asked her because she could, not because she had to.
"What does it feel like? I mean, after she stopped yacking, Regina was all glowy and stuff. Did you go through that?" Ruby haltingly found the question she desired to ask.
Belle sighed and then shrugged. "My morning sickness wasn't nearly as bad as hers. Only certain scents set it off. I mostly craved really, really odd food combinations. That has gotten significantly better in the past few weeks since I've begun a vitamin regiment in addition to folic acid."
Ruby nodded and studied her partner. "You've been healthy, though? I mean getting everything you need, sleep and rest and enough fruits and veggies?"
Belle smirked at Ruby's hesitant concern. Anyone else asking those questions might have received a glare and indignant huff at the insinuation that she hadn't properly helped the child develop in her womb. "Yes, Sweetheart. Our child should be perfectly healthy and properly formed."
"What does it feel like?" Ruby asked again. Perhaps she'd carry next time. She wanted a whole damn wolf pack softball team. They could be named 'Beauty and The Howlers.'
Belle laughed, her face lighting up. "Honestly, bizarre. Remember that horrible movie you forced upon me: Spaceballs? I feel like that fellow in the diner. Any moment this alien is going to pop from my stomach, hiss at everyone, and then dance out the door in true musical theatre fashion."
Ruby laughed out loud and grabbed her cut and burned stomach. "My pride and joy: A little alien wolf," she managed around guffaws. Belle shook her head with a smile but held vigilant in her watch of the stairs.
"Ruby," Belle's suddenly scared voice cut through her laughter like ice dropped down the back of her shirt. "Where's the dagger?"
"What do you mean?"
"Rumpel's dagger," Bell yelled and backed towards her slowly, gun raised. "Ruby, where's the goddamn dagger!"
Ruby's hand slapped her hip as she sprang to her feet, but it only hit a thin bone. A quick glance to the table confirmed its glaring and painful absence. "Belle, shoot him!" She ordered and wrapped her arms around Belle's from behind, steadying her trembling hands.
A bang jarred both of them, leaving a ring in their ears from the echo, but the man disappeared a moment before Ruby squeezed the trigger. The gun flew from Belle's hands as he reappeared and clattered against the far wall near the stairs. Ruby switched their positions and wrapped an arm around Belle's waist, holding her front tightly against her bare back. Small, warm hands found her ribs.
"I'm truly sorry, Miss Lucas," Rumpel whispered. "Though I loathe the dagger in anyone's possession but my own, you never controlled me unless I was discovered harming someone or you needed magical assistance. It seems a small price to no longer be feared." The sincerity in his eyes caught her off guard. Rumpel liked giving her control of his actions?
Those dark, sad eyes turned to Belle's big baby blues peeking over Ruby's shoulder. "Who better to teach me than the one who made my True Love fall in love with her?"
A second set of steps on the stairs blasted a hole in the tender moment, and Rumpel's spine snapped tight. He twisted his hand into a fist, and Ruby doubled over as that simple motion manifested inside her stomach. She bit her lip until the tangy of blood spread over her tongue and tears flew from her eyes. Jacob laughed.
Ruby gritted her teeth. Her wolf was stronger than magic, she reminded herself. Regina said so. She tapped the strength within. A flood of emotions surged into her heart. Her love and her rage combined into one unstoppable form of fur and teeth. She cultivated the imagine in her mind, grooming it to perfection and then unleashed its raw power without physically altering her body.
The hold in her stomach broke, her intestines untwisting slowly. She dropped to her knees, panting for half a second, and then used the position as leverage to tackle The Dark One to the dusty ground. She grinned as the dirt mussed his pretty suit and shoved off his chest in a direct and inhuman sprint towards Jacob.
A slight, almost musical sound met her ears, like a banjo string wound too tightly. She wobbled on her feet and then dropped to the ground mid-stride. Jacob held up a hand weapon of some sort. "Tranquilizers," he explained. "Horse strength. Probably won't knock you out, not one anyway."
He shot the gun again, and Ruby finally noticed the sting in her belly from the first dart. The second sank into the meaty bit of her shoulder. He rolled her over and lifted her from the floor. She fought, but her body took far longer to digest and metabolize the sedative than Rumpel's magic. How had she done that?
Apparently, Jacob wondered the same thing as he threaded her arms through the back of the chair and attached a set of shackles to her ankles, which attached to her wrists. Effectively, he made her strength useless again because she simply pulled against her own flesh this time. "How the hell did she break free from your magic?" He seethed from somewhere behind her.
Rumpel dusted his clothes. Ruby grinned and fought to keep her eyes open. Belle picked up an old board and swung with vicious intent. Rumpel hit his knees. A second thump took him back to the floor where he remained unconscious. Jacob stood and shook the dart gun at her, still nursing a wounded shoulder.
"He was going to heal me!" He screamed, spit flying with excited velocity.
"Oops," Belle murmured and held her hands in the air, surrendering to avoid the same chemical treatment Ruby received. Though the power of belief in their pendants gave them the promise of a healthy child, she decided to not take any chances.
He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders, and she pushed on his hips feebly. "Poor little defenseless Belle without her magic and her wolf," he taunted her darkly, his tone suggesting exactly what he'd enjoy doing to her.
His hard, wet kiss confirmed it. She allowed it to happen, eyes open and covered her breasts with her shackled hands when she noticed his were shut. He felt the movement against his chest and jerked her hands from the sensitive area.
"Don't cover yourself, my little whore. You're mine now. I've bested your alpha." He forced her into the other chair and attached her ankles to the shackles already there. The chain linking her hands jerked down roughly, trapping her hands between her knees with zip ties linking the two sets of restraints.
The position caused her to lean forward slightly, biceps pressed against her breasts. He smiled lasciviously and brushed the middle knuckle of his forefinger over the pliable flesh. "Isn't that how this works in wolf world? When the alpha is defeated, all of his or her possessions become the victor's?"
Belle scoffed. "I am no one's chattel, Merrick," she spat before Ruby could. She hit the ck of his name with emphasis. "I'm not afraid of you," she announced and tipped her chin defiantly, making eye contact.
A backhand on her face broke it, blissfully keeping her from dry eyes and the overwhelming urge to roll them as she stared him down. He retrieved the revolver from the floor, left one bullet, spun the chamber, and set it on the table.
"Shall we begin? Is that sedative wearing off yet? Your wolf shouldn't take long to break free," Jacob said and snagged the dusty scalpel from the floor and wiped it clean. Blood from his gunshot wound trickled to his fingers, leaving behind dark red impressions on the otherwise clean instrument.
"Same rules apply. Don't scream. Don't beg. Don't attack me. Don't even breath loudly." he leaned next to her ear as he spoke, sending chills up her spine. She liked him much better when she could see him.
Belle met her eyes. "I'm here, Sweetheart," she whispered softly. Ruby nodded and took a deep breath.
Panic flickered when he grabbed her hands. Belle's eyes widened in terror and then immediately returned to her a second before the thin, sharp blade slid beneath one of her fingernails and ripped it from her flesh. Ruby's chest and stomach shook and jerked as she pulled jerking breaths into her lungs in attempt to control the pain. Small puffs of air shimmied in and out of her mouth in strangled, broken gasps, just as though someone beat on her chest, preventing a smooth flow of oxygen.
He wasn't only causing physical pain. Ruby worked with her hands. Crafting. Serving food. Making music. He took something far more precious to the wolf than the temporary use of her fingers. They'd heal, but would they ever work the same way again?
"I'm here," Belle whispered. "Think about alien wolves," she encouraged and tried to smile. Ruby raised her eyes, but not her head, and demanded her gaze.
Ruby nodded, lips and chin quivering as she released a slow, steadying breath. She wasn't prepared for the next nail tearing free from the hypersensitive flesh below the cuticle. Her head tipped backwards, and a blood curdling scream broke free.
"I'm sorry! Belle, I'm sorry!" followed the loosed squall.
Ruby hung her head and sobbed freely as Jacob enthusiastically retrieved the gun and trained it on the librarian. Belle desperately searched for Ruby's eyes, panicking when she believed they'd not raise to hers. "Sweetheart, it's okay. Shhh, it's okay. I have faith."
Chocolate brown eyes met glacial blue a second before Jacob pulled the trigger. "I love you."
Bang.