Eugene and Rapunzel sat down together on one of the lower steps of the Tower's inner staircase. She took his left hand in her lap, turned it palm upwards, and said, "Wait a minute…." brought up the same hand closer to her face and peered at it quizzically.
"Look at this!" Rapunzel exclaimed, surprised, as she traced out an invisible line across his palm. "There's some of those magicky healing sparks left on your hand." The young woman pulled back her own hand so he could see and sure enough, Eugene spied some faint twinkling beneath the very top layer of his skin. "Whaddyaknow?" he shrugged. "Huh." A thought occurred to him and Eugene wondered if the glittery effect was now permanent. He surmised that it shouldn't be and that it'd wear off soon enough...hopefully.
"I wonder….." Rapunzel quickly let go of his hand and reached across Eugene's waist, her own left hand now hovering over the rips in his doublet and shirt where Gothel's dagger had pierced him. And although she blushed a very lovely shade of pink upon asking him, the princess asked, "May I?" while pointing to his right flank.
And Eugene couldn't mask his curiosity; his eyebrows arose right along with his elbows as he gave Rapunzel better access to his midsection. Far be it from him to stop the beautifullest young woman of his dreams from unfastening his doublet and untucking his shirt for him. And although Eugene politely looked elsewhere partly for her sake, and partly for fear he might lose his gallant resolve…. He still very much wanted to say something cheeky or pithy or romantic or -
"Looks like my theory is correct," reported Rapunzel. "Hmm?" Eugene was bewildered and his brow furrowed. "Theory?" he echoed, not entirely able to hide his disappointment at the aloofness of her reply. This wasn't what he'd expected from this interaction at all. Eugene supposed he should've known better.
"Uhmmm," said Rapunzel, suddenly shy again, "Well, I had guessed that the places on your body where you've been wounded the worst and most recently would therefore most likely possess some residual magic." She sat back up and pointed toward his torso, "Looks like I was correct."
And Eugene raised his shirt to look down at the place where the mortal wound once was, glimpsing for himself the same shimmering phenom of which Rapunzel spoke. That particular sparkling penetrated far deeper into his flank than what appeared near the surface of his palm, however.
Rapunzel kissed the inside of her hand and gently caressed the healed area on Eugene's side with those same fingertips. It was a gesture so pure and tender that again he found his heart melting with just how gentle she was with him - the hardened criminal. Because this particular sensation…..what he felt now, what he'd felt when Rapunzel was tracing and kissing every inch of his face, and especially when Rapunzel had initially and carefully healed the palm of his hand two days before….it was all so fantastic and new. And what Eugene could not have known then is that he was positively starving for it. He soaked up every drop of her kindness as if she were the sole oasis in his desert of loneliness. It's why the young man knew he couldn't let her walk away from him even after their special night of lanterns had concluded.
For Rapunzel hadn't merely healed his largest mortal wound with her tears or the slicing through his palm with her hair. Without disdain or mockery or any form of guile, this unassuming young woman was healing parts of Eugene that he hadn't even realized were chronically aching and long ago flayed raw in the first place. He had become numb and oblivious to all of it purely out of necessity and survival. Yet this impossibly kind and loving young soul was offering unconditional acceptance to Flynn Rider, the misunderstood career criminal whom everyone in all the seven kingdoms (and beyond) had come to loathe. Since the moment he met her, Rapunzel's mere presence had become like sweet salve for his bruised soul. Even if it took Eugene the rest of his life, he vowed to himself that he would strive to be worthy of his dearest Rapunzel.
Eugene carefully gathered up Rapunzel under his arm and she leaned into him as they embraced again. Rapunzel was….almost impossibly genuine. Is this what real love has always felt like?, he mused. There'd been far too many times Eugene had experienced such deep sadness and devastation in his life that it felt like his heart would certainly break. In fact, he had experienced that exact emotion as recently as that very morning during his imprisonment….. And it wasn't because he feared dying…..it's because he was all but certain he'd never see Rapunzel again. Never get to rescue her from wherever the Stabbingtons had gone off with her.
Prior to meeting Rapunzel, Eugene hadn't ever experienced so much love and peace and contentment, it seemed as if his heart might burst from inability to contain itself. Once again, he appeared to have dozed off with Rapunzel happily squished up against him. Eugene yawned tiredly, internally berating himself and wondering why on earth he was so exhausted…. Until realization finally dawned that it had been over 24 hours since either he or Rapunzel had been able to get any sleep or rest whatsoever. It appeared to have finally caught up to them now that the worst of the danger had passed.
"So...how did you figure it all out?" Rapunzel asked softly, still holding him close with her head nestled against his chest. "It had to be pretty early on. Especially considering our entire first discussion regarding 'backstory'..." And Eugene chuckled.
"You're right, you're right," he replied. "I had definitely begun to suspect something was up by the time we were running through that underground escape system. There were just too many coincidences. A few being that: a.) it was the 18th year of Corona's lantern festival and you just happened to be turning 18; b.) magicalness notwithstanding nobody else in the whole world had hair like yours - its length and tensile strength belied its beaming gossamer beauty; c.) I've seen children - even young adults - utterly terrified of their parents, and for good reason; while I originally thought it was just a figure of speech when you said you "never left the tower", I came to know you were being quite literal...therefore d.) Gothel had to be an abductor hellbent on keeping her secret, especially when e.) you shared with me the ways in which your magical hair worked."
Suddenly, some insistent squeaking noises in front of them on the floor broke into the conversation. Eugene's head whipped toward his right and he looked down.
"Well, hullo there, Li'l Froggy," he greeted Pascal warmly. This caused Pascal to glance over at Rapunzel with a wry look as he sighed long-sufferingly. "Yup. I think you're stuck with it now, Pascal," Rapunzel agreed. Pascal held out his claws heavenward, shrugged, and then he hopped up on Eugene's free wrist and scaled up toward his left shoulder, around his neck, finally perching on Eugene's right shoulder. He squeaked something lengthy to Eugene. And Eugene, who wasn't yet fully versed in Pascallese, had to ask Rapunzel to interpret.
"First of all," Rapunzel began, "he says that 'Frog' is a rather insulting nickname but he'll cut you some slack, being that you died, came back, and fainted all in the past 30 minutes."
"Whoa-ho! Well, thanks for that vote of confidence," a smirking Eugene sarcastically replied to the cheeky lizard on his shoulder.
"Second of all, while you and I were...talking," continued Rapunzel, "Pascal scared up that hairpin and sewing needle you'd mentioned needing for picking locks. He says if you hold up your wrist with the shackle and instruct him right now in real time, he's willing to help pick that lock with you," and Rapunzel grinned.
"A lock-picking frog, eh?" Eugene marvelled, in spite of himself. He couldn't help it - the still-too-loud-Flynn Rider half of his brain was going wild considering that potential. "That is definitely gonna come in handy someday, " he said with a faint smile on his face.
Eugene grabbed in his left hand the hairpin that Pascal had brought. The young man made sure it was bent crookedly in a certain way at one end and handed it back to Pascal. Next Eugene held up his shackled wrist and proceeded to coach the little chameleon in how to use the tricks of a thief's trade. Twice more, Eugene modified the end of the hairpin, always handing it back to Pascal. Within about 90 seconds, the rusted manacle had popped open and slid off Eugene's wrist onto the floor…..where he couldn't help but notice a fresh blood stain on the nearby tile below.
To divert Rapunzel's attention (and his own), Eugene hastily put his boot over the top of the stain and made a big show of finally being free of the manacle. "Ahhh!" he massaged his right wrist, "that's more like it! Tiny high-fives, Froggy!" Eugene reached out his index finger toward Pascal who was still perched upon his right shoulder. The chameleon then "fived" Eugene's fingertip with his bitzy claw.
Rapunzel helped Eugene all the way to his feet and with great relief, he stretched his long legs and even longer back all the way up to his full considerable height. As he was stretching over backward, allowing his spine some satisfying cracks, Eugene surprisingly felt someone touching his bare skin and stole a downward glance at Rapunzel, who was once again examining the former wound in his side.
The young woman noticed a bit too late that she'd already been seen. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Eugene had stopped stretching and was now peering down at her. Rapunzel instantly withdrew her hands as that now familiar delightful shade of pink blossomed under her freckles and she mumbled an apology. She instinctively backed away a step, looked up, and said, "You're even taller than I remembered."