She had been stupid really. Wandering around, village to village, not really caring if she ate or if she drank, not paying attention to how tired she really was instead of just exhausted and heartbroken. It was unnatural; being separated from a person's true love. There was a reason that people who were in love got married and had babies and seemed to be eternally happy. It was because not being with them was a fate worse than death. Or so it seemed to her.
But it had gotten her here at least. It had shown her that there were still good people in the world. In hindsight she probably should have just gone to the valley village by his castle, but instead she'd wanted to be as far away from there as she possibly could, she wanted to be somewhere no one would recognize her as her old self or as Rumpelstiltskin's...as a caretaker. And so she'd wandered for days on end before her body had been unable to cope, unable to handle the stress that she was putting it through and it wasn't long after arriving here that she realized, too late it seemed, that the pain and discomfort she was feeling wasn't from her soul, but her body in need of the food, water, and rest she'd denied it. Her head had been spinning when she saw the unfamiliar tavern but she somehow managed to wander in and ask, beg, for something to drink before her world went black.
Upon waking, she discovered that she'd passed out. At least that's what the wife of the man who owned the tavern told her when she woke up in the strange room. She'd been placed in one of the upper rooms they used for travelers, given water, slept, and after a few days had returned to the land of the living, if she could call it that. She was weak, but still alive. She'd vowed then that she wasn't going to let what had happened kill her off entirely, as it almost had. It could take her soul, she didn't want it any more, she didn't need one that was infected with his glances and small touches, one that lifted at the sound of his voice, and fell when he told her to "go!" She could make a new soul for herself, she already had a body to put it in, she just had to remember to take care of it.
After a few more days of rest, water, and food the owners of the tavern allowed her to stay if she worked for a lower wage to pay back the debt she owed them. In return, and besides that wage, they would give her a meal and a place to stay the night until she could get on her feet again. It was a generous offer and she'd taken them up on it right away. There was no reason not to in her mind. She had nowhere else to go. No one waiting for her. She didn't want to be a princess again; she wasn't ready to face that. So she had simply given them the name Belle, and hoped that it was common enough and far enough away from the rumors that she wouldn't be known.
The town wasn't so bad. It was a mining town. The tavern was often filled with men who earned wages during the day and came here to drink away their sorrows and forget their pitiful day to day lives in the evening. And then there were the funny dwarfs who came in after their shift in the mines. They stood out simply because they were happy with their work and enjoyed each others presence. Her job here was simple. She would wait at night for everyone to leave so that she could help to clean the bar in the morning's light. The wife of the owner who she was friendly with but wouldn't say that she was friends with, gave her free ale and left her to silence her own despair with it. It was often loud but she liked it that way. Between the ale that seemed to dull the voice in her head and the noise that drowned it out she very rarely had time to think about anything...especially him.
Tonight she was watching the table of dwarfs across from her, enjoying each other's company, playing jokes, and laughing just like always. She felt a stab of pain as she watched them. She'd never feel that way again. No, he'd kept the part of her that allowed her to feel things like happiness. And just the act of watching others having a good time made her feel ill and like crying. She turned her attention away from the happy dwarfs, and back to the one that seemed isolated from the rest. He was watching the others with that same look of wanting to feel happiness but not being able. She wondered if that was just part of his personality or if something was wrong, but she couldn't bring herself to ask him. Her days of trying to help were over. Anna, Samuel, Rumple...it never did seem to work out.
And it appeared she didn't need to, another dwarf had noticed his detached demeanor and come over taking the seat opposite him. "What's the matter?" he asked. She turned her head, eager to hear what it was bothering the poor dwarf but trying to appear as she wasn't listening and that she didn't care what was happening with him. "You've barely touched your food."
"I don't know," the dwarf answered with a confused sigh. "I can't eat, I can't sleep, I don't feel at all like myself. Maybe I should have Doc take a look at me," he mused. Now she tried not to listen. She knew the cause of those symptoms and she could barely deal with her own heartache, the last thing she needed was to deal with his as well.
"You're going to trust a dwarf that got his medical degree from a pick axe?" Despite trying not to listen the words still found their way to her, determined to make her think about what she didn't want to. Though she had to admit, the comment did make her smirk a bit. Not only did the dwarf have a good point, but no doctor would ever be able to tell him what was wrong. His physical problems were only a manifestation of the emotional turmoil within him. "I wouldn't worry about it, dwarfs don't get sick. Must be in your head," the other dwarf hypothesized.
"It's not in his head it's in his heart..." she muttered to herself, but it had come out too loudly and both of the dwarfs turned to look at her. Her eyes widened as she realized what had happened. She hadn't wanted to get involved but it looked as though her mouth had other plans. Couldn't she do anything right anymore? The dwarfs stared at her, not because they were angry that she'd been listening but rather they looked like they wanted her to explain further. They already knew she'd been snooping, so she may as well. Shrugging her shoulders like it was nothing, but still unable to come up with a decent friendly smile she stated "You're in love."
She hoped it was the only explanation that they would need. That the light bulb would click and they would laugh at how silly it was they hadn't realized it to begin with, but instead the dwarf across from him rebuked her theory. "Aw, that's impossible. Dwarfs can't fall in love!"
She found herself leaning forward, if monsters could fall in love, if a beast could become a man again because of love, then there was no doubt in her mind. Dwarfs most certainly could fall in love. "Trust me," she muttered, trying to sound pleasant and not pessimistic about the concept that had ruined her life instead of completing it. "I know love and you're in it," she said regretfully. Part of her wished she didn't know the look of it so well, that she had never known it, but that idea gave her a pain in her chest that was even more numbing than the idea of never having met him. So she wished instead that there could have been a better outcome to their story.
The other dwarf gave a dismissive hand wave at her ideas and left, but the other one, the dwarf suffering turned toward her with great interest. "What's it like?" he asked eagerly.
It was like having a knife in your chest and someone turning it just for fun. It was like free falling off a cliff and reaching a terrible sudden ending as body met ground. It was like having your heart ripped from your chest and being held captive to another. It...wasn't that bad.
It couldn't be as bad as all that. If it was, then true love wouldn't be known for love, it would be called "true pain" or "true suffering" instead. That was what her true love had felt like…did feel like, and that was precisely the problem. The dwarf hadn't been rejected by his true love, not yet at least. And besides, the thought of him, being with him, and the idea of true love, hadn't always been that painful to her. It hadn't all been bad. It might have been at the end, but before...that was a different emotion, a different feeling all together. For the first time in weeks she found herself giving a smile and blushing as she remembered him catching her off the ladder, the look he'd given her when she'd first worn her blue dress, and even the feel of him sitting next to her on the table as they'd reflected on his past, and the looks he'd given her as she'd spoken of her hopes and dreams.
No, it wasn't all bad.
"It's the most wonderful and amazing thing in the world," she explained, focusing on those moments. How to describe that feeling seemed impossible, but then again, she wasn't explaining it to someone who'd never had it. He was in it. Right now. Her thoughts would make more sense to him than they would to anyone else in the world. "Love is hope," she reflected, thinking back to the moment of perfection just before she'd made the terrible decision to kiss him. "It fuels our dreams," or in her case it made a Princess realize that for the first time in her life she didn't need to be a princess, or a hero. From where she sat now all the ambitions she'd ever had paled in comparison to the dream that she had left behind. As long as he was by her side she could do anything, be anything. And if she wasn't…love could also destroy those dreams in an instant.
But he didn't need to hear that now, it was the one part of the story, he wouldn't understand. "And if you're in it," she continued after a pause, "you need to enjoy it," she insisted, wishing that she'd had more time to enjoy the feeling of being in love with him. Savor the idea that someone loved her back in that way, before the brief knowledge that she had love had ended so suddenly. "Because love doesn't always last forever," she whispered. Her mind remembered that terrible feeling of being rejected. Was it that love didn't last forever or just that he was incapable of returning it? Sometimes she still felt like she loved him, thought that if she didn't then it wouldn't still hurt her to think of him and their time together. It was a thought that kept her awake at night and the one she tried to avoid during the day.
"But if love's so great, why do I feel so bad right now?" he asked, voicing the very question that went through her mind several times every day. She knew the answer to it as well. She'd had too much time to think about it.
"You need to be with the person you love," she explained. Nothing would be right for him until he was with her again, which was why nothing would ever be right for her again; why she couldn't smile anymore.
"Yeah, but, how do I know she feels the same way. All she talked about was going to see some fireflies, not loving me." She was glad he had moved onto the next question quickly, the idea of explaining how you knew another person loved you wasn't one that she was comfortable talking about. In fact, this entire conversation had gotten far too personal for her taste and she was already feeling the lump in her throat when he asked his question. She might not know much about love, but she was a girl after all. What he was asking her had less to do about love and more to do about how women communicated. She could translate easily enough.
"What, what did she tell you about these fireflies?" she asked suspiciously.
"Ah, that she was going to go see them on the hilltop tonight, that she heard they were the most beautiful sight in all the land." There was a memory there in the back of her mind as the dwarf spoke, a memory of hiding away in some obscure corner of the castle so that he would come find her and make a request that would inevitably place her in the same room as he was. She hadn't done it purposefully at first, but as time wore on she found herself not just wondering if he would find her but hoping that he would. That had been before she knew she'd loved him, and she hadn't known then why she had the urge to stay in his company. She understood now, and the memory along with the clueless nature that the dwarf had for it made her laugh. A real laugh. It appeared she could smile or laugh, but only when he was in her head in some way.
"What?!" the dwarf demanded, and she quickly wiped the smile off her face, not wanting him to think that she was insulting him.
"She wasn't telling you about the fireflies," she explained, "she was inviting you to go be with her."
"You think so?" the dwarf smiled, elated at the thought that her words might be true.
She nodded. "I've had my heart broken enough to know when somebody's is reaching out," she explained willing herself not to cry again. She could feel the tears forming in her eyes, feel the corners of her mouth turning down again to resume their perpetual frown. She had tried, she had reached out, and no one had caught her that time. Suddenly a loud, joyful cry erupted from the other dwarfs at the table and it distracted him enough to look away from her and gave her the opportunity to collect her thoughts, her tears, and emotions so she could shove them back down for a few more minutes. She'd have to go soon, lock herself in the tiny room that she had and cry again. There was no way to contain it these days, but at least she was getting better at sensing the arrival of the break down they brought with them.
"Now go!" she told the dwarf as he looked back over at her. What was he waiting here for? If she was out there, then there was only one place he needed to be. "Find your love, find your hope, find your dreams!" she encouraged, wishing that she had better luck doing that herself.
"I will!" he said standing, bouncing excitedly on his toes. "I will," he restated almost nervously, "I mean...my name isn't Dreamy for nothing...right?" She smirked at him, the closest thing to a genuine smile she could give at the moment. He made a step forward then turned back to her. "Wait. How do I thank you? I don't even know your name."
She smiled at his words. He was a sweet dwarf, but he was also wasting time, and she didn't much feel like being thanked. "My name is Belle," she answered. "And you can thank me by going to see her." Dreamy beamed at her. "Go," she repeated, and with a last glance at the dwarves he disappeared out the door. They hadn't even noticed him go. She hoped he would find her tonight, hoped that he would get what he wanted, hoped that she hadn't just sent a good innocent soul off into the world to be devoured, just as hers had been.
One of the easiest and hardest jobs with keeping up with moments is the little things. Like, for example, in 2x11 how did Dreamy know Belle's name and how did Belle know Dreamy's name when neither really introduced themselves in 1x14. Fortunately for me, this time around it was very easy. Just extend the scene a little to include introductions and it all works out in the end. I can't tell you how happy I am about that. Other little things like that, Robin Hood and how he knew Belle's name and how Belle recognized him, for example, are more difficult to fit in and need an entire chapter edited in. I'm so happy this one wasn't difficult. Really, really happy!
Thanks to Skitzoeinhoven, JamieOUAT, and Onlyinyourdreams77 for the awesome reviews! I'm glad to have ya'll reading and thrilled every time I see that someone has been kind enough to drop me a review and tell me just how much they are enjoying the story and that they think everyone is in character. I know I added a bit here for Dreamy, but I hope he's in character. Peace and Happy Reading!
