-Flashback-
The mansion once loomed threateningly above her. Now, Belle could hardly contain a smile as she skipped to the door. Once, she'd hesitated at the threshold and told herself to pretend to bravery until the actual virtue caught up to her; now, even the thought of being kept away for a day by her overly worried father sent a pang through her heart. The door opened smoothly at her touch, but even if it hadn't, there was a key in her pocket that would allow her entry when its master happened to be absent. The entryway, once shadowed and dusty, now boasted open windows, bright sunlight, and fresh flowers.
Belle set down the basket of straw beside the spinning wheel given pride of place beneath the brightest windows and then hurried away to the kitchen. She smoothly avoided the suit of armor and stuffed bear that obstructed her way. Only once had she suggested moving them somewhere more convenient, but the reaction had been overwhelming. Her master hated change, and for some reason, it was important to him that everything in this stately house remain exactly as it was (except the curtains, and the flowers, and the sunlight, and the second chair now drawn up beside his at the head of the table).
The kitchen was more familiar to her than her own bedroom by this point (had it really been nearly a year since she'd struck her deal?) and it took her only moments to have a kettle boiling, cups arranged just so (particularly the chipped one he'd favored since her first day as caretaker), sugar and milk placed on the tray, and tea steeping. With a skip in her step, Belle hurried back to the front room.
As always, he was there. Sitting at his wheel as if he'd been there the entire time (as if he didn't stop whatever he was doing to come see her as soon as she arrived).
"Ah, is it morning already?" he asked. His voice was high, a bit breathless.
Belle's heart skipped a beat against the slats of her breastbone, a drumming feel that left her just as breathless.
"Didn't the bright sunlight tell you as much?" she teased.
His smile was small but beautiful, and it came so much quicker than those first few weeks when everything between them was new and alarming. "Perhaps. If only I had some drapes handy."
Belle pretended that it took all her focus to make his tea (as if she didn't dream of doing it for him nearly every night) but watched from the corner of her eye. For some reason (all the whispers and stories and campfire tales that whispered of something different, darker, than her master had proven to be), she could never fully convince herself that things wouldn't miraculously change. She always found herself holding her breath, afraid that this time he wouldn't come down, this day he wouldn't leave the spinning wheel to prowl nearer, this moment he would realize there was nothing particularly interesting about her, certainly not special enough to draw all his shy, wondering attention every day.
But he dropped his handful of straw, walked away from the spool of priceless gold, edged his way nearer, nearer, reached for the chipped cup and didn't retreat when he had his tea in hand. Instead, he leaned against the table so near her, and set his walking stick aside, and seemed content to stand there with her for longer than she'd live.
"Any exciting deals coming your way today?" she asked, as had become their habit.
"We shall see."
The answer was shorter than she'd expected. Almost blunt. Distracted.
Belle looked down to her own teacup and tried to think of something more exciting, more interesting, to say.
"I was thinking of dusting your library today," she began.
Too late. Her master looked behind her (beyond her) and narrowed his eyes. His cup was still nearly full as he set it aside.
"Belle," he said (her foolish heart quickened at the unusual sound of her name on his lips), "why don't you start on the library now." His eyes darted to her, just for an instant, warmed and softened, before flicking away again. "Maybe I'll come join you in a while. Never know what piece of information I might need for the next deal."
"Of course."
It hurt, in a way she well knew was ridiculous, to leave without their usual hour of pleasant conversation. She never knew what to expect with her master, and she loved that. But today…well, honestly, today she'd just wanted a bit of familiar routine to distract her from the news her father had broken to her the evening before.
We need the soldiers, he'd said. I know you've sought other means, but the ogres have reached Avonlea. We have no other choice.
Suddenly not wanting to leave Rumplestiltskin (a feeling that was growing ever more constant every evening when she left his house and returned home), Belle turned back. His name was on her tongue, ready to be spoken, as she began to reopen the door to the front room.
Sight of the dark form standing in front of Rumplestiltskin paused her, hidden behind the heavy wood of the door.
"Is it done?" Rumplestiltskin asked in a hushed voice. He darted a glance over his shoulder, and Belle shrank back.
"It is," said a dry, creaking voice that made the hair on the back of Belle's neck rise. "That's one fairy who shares a lot more in common with her magical dust now."
Rumplestiltskin's shoulders sag a bit as he nods, grasping for something long and thin tucked into his belt (Belle's seen it before, usually when he thinks she's distracted with other things). "And you left a witness?"
"As instructed, Master. The bug was just about to bestow her magic upon a serving girl."
"Why?"
"Who knows?" The cloaked and hooded form moved in a way that made Belle think of a shrug. "My instructions were to make the Dark One's whereabouts known last night, not coddle some unimportant girl."
Rumplestiltskin took a deep breath and Belle could see him fighting for composure (rattled, off-balance, in a way she'd never seen him with anyone else). "Those whom fairies take note of are always worth noting ourselves. At the least, you could have given her what she wanted and garnered a favor in return."
"If you had commanded such, Master, I certainly would have done so."
There was a threat there (a cold wickedness) that had Belle stumbling back a bit. Fortunately, the door closed without a sound, and Belle raced away over heavy carpets, eager to reach the library before Rumplestiltskin finished with the Dark One.
It wasn't the first time Belle had caught sight of him, though she'd never let onto Rumplestiltskin. The legends of the Dark One were so conflated with the Spinner that she thought he probably wanted people to think he was actually the Dark Power himself. But Belle had known nearly immediately, had looked into his human eyes and remembered fragments of books and known that there was a reason he never let a certain dagger out of his sight.
With a sigh of relief, she made it to the library. It should have been her favorite room in the entire mansion, but there was no spinning wheel here, so it was her second-favorite. Still, there was a bit of comfort to be found wandering the shelves, drifting her hand along the spines of more books than even she could read, breathing in the scent of ink and paper and power. More comfort in reminding herself of the Rumplestiltskin who shared tea with her and granted her favors simply because he could and loved to listen to her ramble about her favorite stories.
Rather than choosing a book (she'd never be able to concentrate on it anyway), Belle simply wandered—through the room. Through memories.
It had taken months to convince her father that a deal with the Spinner was the only way to keep their trade routes open past the constantly changing front lines. It had taken weeks to hammer out what they could possibly offer the Deal-Maker in trade. It had taken mere hours to slip away while the council argued (dithered) and find her way to Rumplestiltskin's front door.
He certainly hadn't been what she expected, though she hardly knew what that was. He'd barely turned from his wheel to look at her as she curtsied (scarcely wobbling despite the pounding of her heart), and as if the trembling of her limbs had been more noticeable than her knocking and the door swinging inward, he'd giggled and said over his shoulder, "I already got your message, dearie. Something along the lines of 'Please, please, can you save us?'"
"And?" she'd asked, proud when her voice emerged steady. "Your answer?"
"Nice of you to come down here and save me on the postage," he'd said caustically, which was when she'd noticed the gold he was spinning.
(That's a lie: she'd noticed, first, the focus of his attention, the precision of his fingers, the care and absorption he gave the task, and then, lastly, she noticed the gold that emerged where straw should fall.)
Her stomach had sunk. All the gold her people had scrimped and saved and donated wasn't going to mean anything to this man—the richest merchant in all the Marchlands with gold flowing from his very fingertips.
"You must know that your roads are the only routes not cut off by the advance of the ogres," she'd said. "Which means you have to have been expecting a request like this."
"Of course." Finally, the spinning had ceased. A sudden, abrupt change as he swiveled on soundless feet to face her. He was dressed richly, nearly ornately, every inch of him covered in tasteful wealth. But his face was nearly as gaunt as the beggars Belle invited to the castle meals, his eyes so large they seemed to swallow up all the light in the room. And his fingers still moved, as if spinning was so second-nature to him that the movement had become as instinctual as breathing.
He'd studied her a long moment (or perhaps he was letting her examine him, and waiting to see her reaction) before smirking and prowling forward. "Of course I knew," he murmured. "I just didn't expect the message to come with a virgin sent as messenger and sacrifice all in one."
For all that Belle had spent days shoring up her courage and hours preparing herself for this meeting in the hopes that bravery would catch up to her, she'd gasped and stepped quickly backward. Her elbow bumped up against the table and the pretty china tea set placed there as if he'd been expecting company. A teacup rattled, tipped, teetered for just long enough to make Belle think she could catch it, and then fell to crack against the lush carpet.
Belle had dropped to her knees (the trembling in her legs hadn't allowed anything else) and scooped up the cup. "I'm sorry, Rumplestiltskin!" she blurted. "I'm so sorry! But, look, it's just chipped. You can hardly see it."
Standing above her, the dark merchant that had all of Avonlea terrified—the man who was utterly ruthless in his business dealings and shrouded in rumors of Dark powers—Rumplestiltskin had looked nothing but startled and uncomfortable at the sight of her kneeling before him.
"It's just a cup," he finally said. "And I don't need any virgins."
"How about gold?" she'd asked with a pitiful attempt at a smile. She'd berated herself for thinking this was something she could do. Her, the clumsy bookworm with more theoretical knowledge than practical experience!
"No." He'd turned, looked at his wheel, then turned back to her. "But you know my name and you came anyway."
He hadn't wanted favors. He'd laughed at the offer of gold. He'd studied her so intently, a satisfied smirk twisting his lips when she refused to flinch at his proximity.
"The place has been looking dusty. It could use a caretaker. If you come here every day, sunup to sundown, and clean, prepare meals, answer the door—for that, I will keep your little roads open and ensure safe passage for your wagons and soldiers."
He'd looked so uncertain at saying (offering) it, then so haughty when she'd giggled (in relief) at him, then dismissive as soon as she accepted (breathless with hope and determination).
That had mostly set the tone of their interactions. She showed up at sunrise every morning to pretend she knew anything about cooking breakfast, dusted his extensive collection (trinkets and tokens and reminders that he was all too eager to share with her), served him tea (and drank it with him because he hovered so near, so far, from her with such large, uncertain eye), set out a dinner for him while trying a bit of conversation, and then eventually (when he said more than he meant or looked at her if she'd surprised him yet again) he dismissed her and she made the trek back home where she fell into bed physically tired but mentally buzzing.
And if given the choice, she wouldn't give it up for anything.
Oh, of course her father had raged, in the beginning, and begged and scorned. But the Spinner was more terrifying than the ogres (the entire reason they'd asked only for safe passage rather than an end to the war altogether), and in the end, Belle had her way, and her people ate and were provided fresh soldiers while Belle uncovered more of the mystery that was Rumplestiltskin.
No one knew why the Spinner had come to settle here in Avonlea when before he'd traveled constantly. He'd simply appeared one day, mansion and all, and quietly set about dealing for control of every road in and out of the Marchlands. Of course, when the ogres began advancing, things seemed a lot clearer (though why, then, did he ask only for a maid he talked to more than he tasked with duties?).
A monopoly, Gaston had called it with his sneer of disdain. You should have seen what he was doing. Why didn't you stop him from owning land?
"As if free trade is something to be taken away on a whim," Belle muttered. Despite the promise she'd made to herself to keep all her home troubles far away from Rumplestiltskin, she felt trapped and cross as she thought of Gaston.
Maybe because her choice was being taken away from her.
"What was that, dearie?"
Belle started, then smiled over her shoulder at Rumplestiltskin, who stood beside the door and peered in as if he thought he was unwelcome in his own library.
"Nothing that matters," she said, relaxing.
At her smile (as if smiles were invitations and frowns iron gates he couldn't pass by even with the power of the Dark One his to command), Rumplestiltskin entered the room. He drifted toward the couch but didn't sit. He picked up a book but didn't look at it.
Belle stepped nearer, and smiled again. He felt free. Light. The air of menace that sometimes hung heavy around him was missing for the moment. He'd come alone.
She loved these times best.
In the beginning, Rumplestiltskin had been, by turns, a showman, a bully, or a silent wall, utterly fixated on his spinning. He bounced between snide humor, cutting observations, guarded silences, and genuine questions about her life as if those things didn't all seem too contradictory for one man. He was lonely, she'd thought nearly immediately, drawn to company and conversation and a friendly smile. But he was afraid too, retreating when she came too near, flinching when she reached out, stiffening when she accidentally (dared to) brush against him.
At first, the way he loomed had frightened her. To be near him was to be oppressed, nearly smothered, by a darkness that seemed rooted deep within him. But as the weeks passed (as the bully vanished before the shy spinner; the showman turned soft and eager to please; the silent wall opened and thawed), after that first time she'd hugged him for letting an attempted thief go free, the dangerous air began to vanish for hours at a time. Days. Even a few weeks, here and there. Now, Rumplestiltskin often seemed to be merely a man (sweet and shy and hesitant), the crutch set aside, the shawl nowhere in sight.
Belle wasn't a fool. She knew that it was the Dark One that was the intermittent shadow in his steps. She knew that not all her conversations with Rumplestiltskin were private. But she liked it best when she could tell that Rumplestiltskin had sent away his powerful servant to be alone with her.
"Are you all right?" she dared ask her master.
His eyes flicked to hers, but briefly, as if sight of her for too long blinded him, and he set the book aside. "I am now. And you? You didn't have a book to return today?"
That helpless feeling assailed her again. "No," she murmured. "I didn't have time to read last night."
"Oh?" He prowled closer, teasing and light (everything he wouldn't be if she were to tell him what her father and Gaston had planned behind her back). "The little bookworm has finally tired of her stories?"
"No," she said with a roll of her eyes. "It's hard to read with the new messages from the front. And my father—" She tucked her lips inward (why did he have to make it so easy to confide in him?).
Rumplestiltskin stared at her. Not calculatingly (like her father often did). Not dismissively (as Gaston always did). Not oddly (like so many of her own people did). No, he stared as if he wished to. As if he could think of nothing he'd rather do than keep staring at her and trying to unwrap her, layer by layer.
Repressing a delightful shiver, Belle tried to shake her head. "It's nothing. The war's not going well. More troops are needed. Same as it's been for nearly a year now."
"Yet it's only now distracting you from your reading," he observed.
She shouldn't tell him. Her father had commanded her not to. Gaston had snorted at the mere thought of confiding in the Beast. She herself had wanted to just spend her time here as usual (as lovely) as if nothing outside her days here mattered.
But. Rumplestiltskin was, despite it all, her friend. She could talk to him in a way she couldn't anyone else. And she dreaded to think of what he'd do if he wasn't forewarned of something that would affect their deal.
In the end, it wasn't much of a choice at all (loyalty to Gaston or loyalty to Rumplestiltskin—that wasn't even a question).
"My father and Gaston have made an agreement," she said. Her legs gave out and she sank down onto the couch. Rumplestiltskin drifted nearer. She wished he would reach out, hold her hands, brush her cheek before her tears could fall (she wished for impossible things). "Soldiers and arms in return for my hand in marriage."
"Ah." When she dared a glance up, she couldn't read the expression on his face. His eyes were shuttered, the fingers of one hand working against each other. That menacing presence was absent, yet there was something almost sinister about Rumplestiltskin's manner anyway. "So. The princess and the knight. The lord's daughter and the soldier. The maiden and the hero. So the stories always go."
"They shouldn't," Belle said more fiercely than she'd intended. "Maybe sometimes the hero is actually the person others glanced over. Maybe the soldiers shouldn't always be the protagonists. Maybe sometimes the princess doesn't want the knight."
Silence. Belle could hear only her blood rushing through her ears, feel only her pulse beating against her throat, see only Rumplestiltskin's absolute stillness.
Finally, finally, he came closer, hovered as if he might sit beside her (or kneel at her feet). "Belle," he said, so carefully (so tentatively, the real man behind the mask). "Are you… Do you want to marry this Gaston?"
"Of course not!" she exclaimed. "He's shallow and brutish and…and…and not…"
She couldn't say it. Bravery slipped away and her eyes fell and the truth sat like heavy humidity between them.
(He's not you.)
"Well then," Rumplestiltskin said briskly. He paced sharply before her, graceful as always, a beast in regal clothing (a hero in villain's cloak). "You're my caretaker, are you not? And I suppose a wedding would take time. Probably happen during the day. You'd have to move somewhere far away. And how would you be able to fulfill your deal to me if you weren't in easy distance, hmm?" He bent and wagged a finger just in front of her nose. "Foolish of you to think you could get out of our arrangement so easily, my dear. No one breaks deals with me."
Belle bit her lip to try to contain her smile. "Of course not."
"I'm afraid the wedding will have to be cancelled. My caretaker must be devoted to me rather than some brutish husband."
"I am devoted to you," she murmured.
Rumplestiltskin very nearly stumbled (Belle tried not to feel too accomplished but failed).
"Shall I go tell my father?"
"Yes, yes. Best go quick as you can. I'd hate for too many people to be inconvenienced by a wedding that will never happen."
Unable to resist, Belle drew her fingers down Rumplestiltskin's arm as she stood. "Thank you, Rumplestiltskin."
"Nonsense. I'm only protecting my investment."
"I know," she said with a smile and what she hoped was a knowing look.
She was halfway to the door when Rumplestiltskin stopped her.
"Belle?"
Turning, she felt her heart give a flip as he offered her the cloak he'd made for her (she could tell when he was lying, and claiming this cloak that fit her so perfectly had just been lying around in one of the unused rooms hadn't even been a good attempt).
"Careful on the road back," he murmured.
Belle caught her breath as Rumplestiltskin draped the cloak over her shoulders. He'd never been so bold before, never touched her of his own accord (never looked at her so softly). "I'll be back," she said through a suddenly dry mouth. "It won't take me but an hour."
"Don't dawdle," he said with an attempt at his usual lilting tone.
"I never dawdle on my way here," she said (truth to make up for the one she couldn't quite say aloud. Not yet).
His hand brushed along her spine as she stepped out the door. Belle chanced a look back and saw him still standing in the doorway. For just an instant, seeing him caught there on the threshold with shadows looming behind him, she wanted to reach back and grab his hand. Wanted to pull him free with her and run, both of them, so far and so fast that the Dark One would never be able to find them and no one knew to whisper about him behind his back.
Impossible, she knew. And for all Belle's dreams, she'd also always been pragmatic.
She couldn't take him with her. But she could return.
For good this time. Forever.
She felt his eyes watching over her the entire way back to her father's keep.
-Storybrooke-
There's a presence at her elbow, short and bright and smarter than she thinks she probably was at his age. Always chattering, always pushing in, always pressing past whatever boundaries she (halfheartedly) tries to erect. Emma looks down into the hazel eyes of her son (her son, given away so long ago and returned to her so out of the blue that she still pinches herself occasionally, just in case) and wonders how she ever survived without him there, strolling along at her side.
"What story are you are on now?" he asks, all wide eyes and brimming hope that he inexpertly hides by looking away toward the nearing police station. "If you've had time to read, anyway. It doesn't matter if you haven't. No pressure."
"I'm reading about Snow White and Prince Charming, whose name is actually David—which, I have to admit, I didn't expect." Emma shakes her head and gives her kid a wry grin. "Not that these stories are too concerned with sticking to their source material. So far the Heartless Queen has turned Snow White into Fugitive #1, tried to bankrupt David's family for no apparent reason, helped King George blackmail them into splitting up, and now seems intent on killing Snow White for no other reason than to be the uncontested ruler of the kingdom she already rules. It's like I've always told August: fairytales don't make any sense."
"They do if you realize that the Heartless Queen cares about power and knows the prophecy about the product of True Love," Henry says. He likes to do this—ask her where she is, listen to her answer, then drop a few spoilers she hasn't read yet. For all Emma feels like he's leading her down a planned path with little breadcrumbs, she finds it endearing.
She likes that he wants to share his favorite stories with her. She likes that her opinion matters to him.
She likes him.
(And this above all scares her. It makes her want in a way she hasn't since Tallahassee.)
"And you've noticed the person always helping them, right?" Henry checks (he doesn't have much faith in her reading comprehension, but with her smile and Neal's eyes, he makes that cute too).
"Yeah. I can't say I entirely get this Dark One. He pops in and out of the story constantly, always manipulating and dealing and even occasionally helping, but the book doesn't explain why. What is his deal?"
Henry sobers a bit and presses nearer. Emma welcomes the weight of his shoulder bumping against her hip. She hopes she manages to make her sideways walking hug somewhat stealthy (the mayor's warned her away from her family more times than Emma can count).
"Nobody knows," the kid whispers, as if the contents of his storybook are a national secret. "The Spinner has his own past and no one really knows it. There's only one of his stories in the book, but the picture's all shadowed and it ends without explaining anything."
"Oh? What happens?"
"It's Beauty and the Beast," Henry says. "He starts to fall in love with Belle after he makes a deal for her to be his maid, but then, when she goes to tell her father that she won't marry Gaston, the story just ends. I don't know if she ever went back to the Spinner or if she changed her mind or if…" The poor kid falls silent, looking almost sick.
"Right." Emma summons up another smile for him. "It's a very strangely written book. Makes August's stuff look like a masterpiece."
"That's because it tells us only what we need to know to break the curse," Henry says so matter-of-factly that Emma blinks. He smiles up at her (guileless as she never was; innocent as Neal could pretend to be). "If it were real, anyway. Which of course it isn't. Nothing in it is close to our real lives."
As she pulls open the glass doors of the police station and follows him inside, Emma wonders. David looks up from where he's hunched over his office, and even setting aside the name, she'd swear that fake smile to cover up pain is the same smile she saw in the book. That whole-page illustration of the Prince Charming trying to reassure Snow White just before they set their newborn baby inside a wardrobe in hopes of another world (a better life). The picture Emma stared at until embarrassment had forced her to look away and pull her hand back from the place where Snow White and the Prince's hands twined together.
Not that that picture's alone in having captured Emma's attention with a dash of déjà vu.
Ruby's helpless look when she found out Billy was missing had made her think of the expression Red Riding Hood had worn when she realized who exactly had eaten poor Peter.
Mary Margaret, aside from her meek demeanor and pixie haircut, is a dead ringer for the multiple pictures of Snow White that pepper the pages of the elaborate storybook.
And Cora Mills has the same overstated hauteur (not to mention the same heartless morals) as the Wicked Queen. Her daughter follows in her wake, quiet and overshadowed, in both book and reality.
But that's ridiculous. This is the real world, after all. How many times did Neal tell her not to waste time thinking on fairy tales? How many events in her own life have hammered in the truth that there are no fairy godmothers, no happily-ever-afters, no true love's kiss? There's only the people who try to keep her down, the people who do what's necessary. Lies and betrayals and abandoned babies on the side of the road.
Emma sets aside thoughts on the book and nods a hello to David. The poor guy wasn't kidding about this town being overwhelming for a single officer, so mostly he lets her do the patrols and running around while he sifts through reams of overdue paperwork.
She very carefully doesn't draw attention to the way very few of the papers on his desk ever move. She pretends not to notice the times David stops mid-movement and breathes, slowly, cautiously, until the lines in his face ease. She never mentions the times she comes into the office and finds him sleeping, eyes tight with pain, mouth pinched close, hands white-knuckled over his badge. She certainly doesn't ask about the will she's spied him working on occasionally before he notices her and tucks the document quickly away.
Instead, they talk about jelly donuts versus cream-filled. Compare horror stories from their respective jobs. Swap bad jokes. Sometimes they just sit in silence in a way Emma's only ever been able to do with a couple people (Neal, who left her behind and never looked back; and August, who seems to always be busy now, his writing forgotten in favor of his carpentry job, Emma nearly forgotten in favor of his new father figure). And sometimes he casually explains what he's doing, what papers will need to be filled out when, which town citizens to be wary of and which to listen to with a healthy pinch of salt.
Gold's warning (so carefully planted because she can't believe anything that man says is not planned down to the last syllable and final period) haunts her thoughts. It makes the lines around her own eyes tighten as she closes her mouth over questions, orders, pleas. She likes the moments between her and David almost as much as she likes her time with Henry (another want added to the list), so it's easier to plop down at her own desk while David gathers himself behind glass walls (soothes away the greenish hue to his face and tries to hide the redness of his eyes).
"The curse, huh?" she says when it looks like Henry means to wave a greeting to David. "I admit that I did skim the ending so I know there's not a happy ending coming."
"What? Oh, no, that's because the story's not done."
"Don't tell me there's a sequel."
"One day." Henry casts a sidelong look David's way before lowering his voice. "Anyway, I wasn't talking about the Spinner, before, when I asked about the one helping Snow and Charming. Haven't you noticed the stories about the Queen's daughter?"
"Oh, yeah. Regina." Emma does her best not to squirm. "Right. She helped Snow get away, didn't she? And warned her about the Heartless Queen's raids on that road."
"Right, and if the Queen ever found out about that, it'd be bad. Really bad." Henry's shudder seems a bit exaggerated, but then, the kid really gets into these stories—and probably more so considering the Queen's daughter shares a name with his mom.
Emma's heart twinges in her chest.
His mother. His actual mother (not just the woman who carried him below her heart and refused to hold him and dared not even look at him in case he reminded her too much of a home and a dream and a man she couldn't have; the woman who gave him away).
"Well, I'm certainly not going to tell her," Emma says. It's a throwaway comment (made mainly so he won't notice her discomposure), but Henry beams at her.
"I knew you wouldn't!" he exclaims. "I knew we could trust you."
Emma blinks. "Uh, kid, you know—"
"I know, I know. Not real." She swears the kid actually winks at her. "I better get going before Archie starts wondering where I am. Thanks for walking with me."
"Of course," she says, even though he's giving her more credit than she deserves (the kid's memorized her schedule and has the uncanny ability to always show up when she has a few free moments). "Tell Archie hi for me."
"I will. We're going to go out and listen to the crickets before our session. They've only just come to Storybrooke."
Shaking her head, Emma tries to decide if she's more worried or endeared by Henry's ability to make even the most mundane things sound magical. "See ya, kid."
Without Henry's brimming presence to distract her, the station seems extra quiet. Emma glances at the files awaiting her before heading for David's office.
"Hey," she says as she enters with a desultory knock. "What's up?"
David looks relatively healthy (if healthy means wan, exhausted, and defeated) as he smiles at her. "Good morning, Emma."
"Hey." Emma feels her own smile spread and grow.
This, this, is why she never asks any of the questions brimming within her—this easy camaraderie between them. This spark of joy that shoots through her every time he smiles at her. Emma doesn't really know how to describe the way she feels about David. She certainly doesn't want to date him (thankfully, seeing how many times she's caught Mary Margaret sending him wistful looks), and isn't attracted to him at all. But she loves being around him. She's never enjoyed a job more, and most of that is thanks to David. And for some reason, she can't shake her own feelings of delight every time he's happy with her.
It's weird, okay, she knows it. But like so much else in Storybrooke, it seems better not to question it.
"Not much on the docket for today," David says. "Though Mrs. Hubbard was complaining about a possible burglar so maybe run a quick patrol through the westside of town today?"
"Sounds good." Emma hesitates. She should leave for her patrol, but she wants a few more moments here. There's no rush, is there? "Do we believe Mrs. Hubbard or is this a courtesy check?"
David smiles in approval at the question (Emma tries very hard not to bask in it), but the sound of something tapping behind them interrupts whatever he might have said.
"Ah, Sheriff Nolan. Deputy Swan." Mr. Gold nods a greeting to each as he maneuvers his way around Emma so smoothly she's not quite sure how he ends up in the office standing between her and David. "I'm glad I caught you both."
"Mr. Gold." David pushes back his chair and stands. Emma hopes Mr. Gold is too busy posturing to notice David's waver on the way upright and the way he has to plant his hands on the desk to hold himself steady. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, this is the only law enforcement agency in town," Gold says dryly. "So when I heard of a potential crime, I thought this might be my best option."
"What do you want?" Emma asks bluntly. She moves directly into Gold's line of sight, not so incidentally setting herself in front of David.
"You might be aware that I have people to keep me apprised of anything new or unusual in Storybrooke, on the off-chance trouble might result," Mr. Gold says. He casts a cool glance over David's overflowing desk, Emma's casual clothes, the gun holstered at her side. Atop his cane, his fingers flick dismissively. "Well, I've recently been informed that sometime in the last two or three nights, people were spotted in the woods near Mayor Mills's cabin."
"Great. I'll let the ranger know people are actually hiking," Emma drawls.
Mr. Gold's smile is a threat. "People carrying a body."
"A body?" David steps around the desk, his eyes sharp. "Are your informants certain?"
"Well, he didn't head down and pull back the sheet to take a picture of the face," Mr. Gold says with an impatient snap to his tone. "But if I were the sheriff, I'd think it seemed suspicious enough to at least warrant a look-around. But you're the one with the badge. Do as you will."
Emma's more than willing to let the man walk out of their day, but David steps forward and actually dares to lay a hand to Mr. Gold's elbow (it's the first time Emma can remember ever seeing anyone touch the pawnbroker). "Gold," David says. "Why does this matter to you?"
"You know me," Gold says quietly. Something about David's belief (or maybe his willingness to reach out) has softened whatever fury is coiled in Mr. Gold's form. "I'm always ready to cause the Mayor trouble. Word of bodies being dug up or buried near her property? That can only set her back."
"I think there's more," David says.
Gold pulls free of David's hold. "Think whatever you like, though personally, I'd advise you to put much more thought into what body someone could be moving. Or even who might have a body to move. Or even where Mr. Humbert is to have seemingly missed all the commotion. But by all means, sit here and debate amongst yourselves."
"Don't worry, Mr. Gold." David moves so he's standing right next to Emma, his shoulder warm against hers. Emma feels herself stand taller, firmer (something inside her swelling bold and unbroken at David's trust). "We'll look into it. Make sure your people know not to go any closer until we can get there."
"Oh, I'm not sending anyone down there," Gold says.
Emma's eyes narrow. "What does that mean?"
"You'd better hurry," Gold tells her with a thin smirk. "You'd hate for someone else to beat you there."
His cane tap-tap-taps into the distance before disappearing. Emma tries to look only mildly concerned when she turns to David. "You don't think he's planning on investigating this himself, do you?"
"When it comes to getting one up on the Mayor?" David rolls his eyes. "Yes, I think he's going to do whatever he feels like doing."
"Great." Emma busies herself pulling her jacket on while David sneaks a pill from his desk and swallows it. When she hands him his coat, she tries to smile. "How serious are we taking this?"
"Mr. Gold's taking it seriously," David replies. "And he seemed…strange."
"He always seems strange."
"Stranger, then. He was furious. Didn't you see it?"
She hadn't, exactly, but on second thought, Emma realizes that Gold was impatient. Snapping as if he hadn't already planned out and rehearsed every line of their dialogue. And when David touched him…had he trembled?
"I think we'd better hurry," David says. "Hopefully, this is nothing, but after Billy…"
A chill runs down Emma's spine. She stays right at David's heels, one eye on him, one hand ready to steady him if he wavers. But once they're in the car headed for the courthouse and the nearest available judge, when David calls the Forest Ranger office, Emma calls August.
Just in case. Just because.
"Hey," he says, sounding distracted. "How's it going?"
"Fine," she says. The knot always in the pit of her stomach loosens slightly at the sound of his voice (he's been her constant, always, the only one who bothered to care for that abandoned baby). "Just…you're with Marco, right?"
"Yeah, we're working on this cuckoo clock. You wouldn't believe the detail to it. Pa—Marco says some of these take years to make. Can you imagine staying in one place long enough to see that through?"
She couldn't just a month ago. But Henry's smile flashes behind her eyes, David's trust, that book up in her room. And August, for as long as she's known him, has never seemed so happy before.
"Look," she says, "we got a strange call. Just make sure you stay with Marco. Or someone else. Okay?"
He's silent a moment. "Keep an alibi on hand, got it," he finally says. "Be careful, Emma. I know you think this is just a small town, but bad things have happened here."
Emma's jaw clenches. "I know. Be careful. I'll see you later."
"Watch your back," he says back.
When Emma hangs up the call, David gives her an understanding look. "There's no answer at the station, but we'll swing by and find Graham first," he says. "Can't hurt to have a guide out there. If we don't find anything in an hour or two of searching ourselves, we'll ask for some volunteers to help comb the woods."
Emma nods. It's everything and more than they can legally do, but somehow, it feels like too little.
The squad car races through town, but Emma feels time slipping away from them.
There's a fever growing inside him. Hot and sharpening, liquid-smooth and steel-hard, it is familiar. He's felt it once before, years ago. Centuries ago, in another world, another lifetime, so far removed the memory should have faded, dulled and turned brown with rust, partially overwritten by other, more recent trials. It is, instead, swollen, feverish, festering, electric with pain as chronic and debilitating as that in his ankle.
Then, in that other world, blinded by all but fear and desperation, Rumplestiltskin had filled himself with the Dark One's power and strode at the head of a storm to strike against whatever dared touch his boy. He'd erased the reminder flaring up at every step of his right foot in favor of a scarf that blazed like a sun around his throat.
Today, Mr. Gold needs no Dark One. No dagger. No scarf. Today, the coals simmering at the hinges of his foot are reminder again (touchstone of all he gave up, once more, in vain). Today, it is a different power that gives him recourse (that a spinner never had), grants him options (that a father had to kill to obtain), buys him muscle and loyalty (that before, only a duke with stolen power could command).
Gold parks his Cadillac well back from Cora's cabin. She fancies it a well-kept secret, but his dark bird has kept him better informed than that. Knowing the good sheriff and his golden protégé, they will waste a couple hours following laws that serve only to keep the powerless more so (and searching for a ranger they might yet find if they follow the tracks he left and find the shallow grave he arranged). He has time to allow some of the sparks festering inside him loose to play.
Time and multiple distractions. Regina is too valuable a resource to waste (too fragile with her shaking hands to push too far), but she can distract her mother before Cora can deliver whatever ultimatum she thinks will buy her victory. August is still little more than a wooden puppet (his time of importance still lies in the future), but it's easy enough for a craftsman to ring a doorbell and begin long negotiations about the trinkets meant to be repaired.
Give him an hour and he will raze these woods to ash. Give him a day and he will have this town in the palm of his hand, dagger or no. (And if Jones dead once and for all is a result of that, then he will make sure only that he gets answers first.)
"Make me a clear path," he murmurs to his escort.
Dove, silent as he is reliable, sets about finding Gold a footpath that won't emerge in full view of whoever's at the cabin.
Jones. Like a cockroach, the pirate is back again, once more fully entwined in Gold's life. So interfering. So cocky and bold where he has no right to be. Always escaping consequences. Skittering around in dark corners. Gold would have thought he couldn't sink any lower, but this? Digging up a grave that was never enough, exhuming her body, using it to…what? Taunt him? Draw him out?
(What does Cora think he will exchange in return for a body, even one perfectly preserved and beautiful?)
Well, if it's a fight Hook wants, then it's a fight he shall get (Cora already knows, after all, and Gold has his own aces in play behind her back). It's long past time for the bug to finally be exterminated, and if even the monster from Rumplestiltskin's childhood wouldn't do it, then Gold is more than happy to take that role as his own.
Dove is like a specter at his side. Gold squints his eyes as he steps carefully (imagines the tall giant robed in black with a dagger at his waist) and reassures himself that this power will be enough. The magical oddments he collected before arriving in this world have mostly been used up (all of it well worth the apple now in the Hatter's care), leaving him with only a cane and a thug to keep him from under the heel of Hook's boot.
Well, that and his silver tongue, which still leaves the pirate outmatched.
If it were Cora waiting ahead of him, perhaps Gold would have waited longer (the long game is theirs, after all). But Hook. Hook took his son, once, and then again, and now has come back to rub it in that he can take and discard whatever Rumplestiltskin loves. For weeks now, he's been stalking Gold (trying to reduce him to a cripple alone in the world), seeking proof that he hasn't changed (that he still deserves to lose whatever good is granted him). Well, Gold wants his own proof (of Jones's death, his heartless nature transferred to concrete reality), has his own answers to bleed from the pirate (about a son and a father and a shadow and the truth lying between them all).
So Gold does not wait (does not play the part of the docile, tamed pawnbroker). Instead, he pries up every barrier, every shield, every lock he has ever placed over that fever boiling inside him until it sears his blood to steam and melts his bones to armor.
Dove gestures to a small hillock looking down over the cabin. Gold accepts the binoculars the man offers him, and situates himself where the gleam of sun against glass won't give him away as he peers down at his prey.
The pirate lounges back against the cabin's door, his eyes deceptively hooded as he watches down the road (as if Rumplestiltskin the spinner will come limping up to meekly ask for his wife back for his boy's sake). Cora is (unsurprisingly) nowhere in sight. Regina and the puppet are playing their parts. It is only left to see if the Savior will come through before it's too late.
There is definitely something within the cabin. The pirate guards it, whatever (whoever) it is, without any indication that he thinks the task onerous or likely to get any more difficult.
Of course, watching over a corpse isn't hard.
Gold's gloves creak against the binoculars as his hands stiffen with rage.
"Bells rang," the Hatter's cracked voice rings in his ears. "Bells that don't ring anymore."
The unburied girl.
Gold doesn't need a dagger to cause damage.
"Dove," he says, "go back to the car and call the sheriff. Give him my location and tell him that if he's not here very shortly, he'll have another body to dispose of."
The giant evaporates into the distance. Hook stands up straight, as if he heard a noise that isn't there. Gold watches with preternatural calm as the pirate unbars the cabin door and disappears inside. It's too far for sound to travel well, but Gold has the sense that words are said (but to whom?) before Hook appears again.
He's dragging a girl behind him.
Not a stiff corpse (she died). Not an unmoving body (they were cruel to her). Not a cadaver rotted with age and decay (it's your fault).
No, it is a living, breathing girl. Beautiful as a bell, small as a teacup, outwardly delicate and inwardly strong as his favorite book.
Belle.
Belle alive.
Gold's not breathing. He can see lights at the edges of his vision, darkness encroaching, but he cannot break this spell even long enough to expand his ribcage (because what if a sip of air shatters this moment and leaves him alone again?).
Belle here. Just there, right in front of him, her arm grasped cruelly tight in Hook's hand, her face washed pale with fear.
No wonder Cora thought she could destroy him. No wonder she sent Regina to divert and tempt and bait the hook. No wonder Hook's eyes flash with premature victory.
The binoculars fall into the undergrowth. A breath banishes the lights from his eyes. His cane leaves pitted holes to mark his path downward. Shelter falls away as Gold strides at the head of a storm.
Sounds solidify, become clear, loud enough for Gold to process them if he could only focus past the rushing in his ears. Just enough slips past for him to know that Jones is calling the girl love.
He called Milah that too—and now Milah's dead while Belle's alive and his son's in the wind and Gold is obliterated before the force of Rumplestiltskin's arrival.
A slight whimper leaks from Belle's mouth (living, breathing, only ten feet away) as Hook raises his hook and runs the point of it slowly, seductively along her cheek.
Gold cocks the trigger of the gun in his hand and says, "I think you've been in this world plenty long enough to know what this weapon is—and just how quickly I can kill you with it."
Do you think people can be weapons?
She died.
Hook whirls around. Gold thinks he means to pull Belle in front of him as a living (living) shield, but she stumbles and falls, her arm wrenched from his grip. Gold isn't even aware of using his cane as he materializes between Hook and Belle, the gun so close to Hook it brushes his coat.
The pirate doesn't look alarmed in the least.
"Rumplestiltskin," he hisses. "It's you."
"It's me," Rumplestiltskin confirms. "And here you are, once again going after what's mine. If I didn't know any better, I'd say your envy's getting the better of you."
"Oh, please!" Hooks sneers. "You know, when Cora told me that this…girl"—his lip curls—"would be enough to draw you out, I doubted her. The Crocodile doesn't fight for what he wants, after all. Not unless he thinks he can win."
"While you only pick battles you're sure you can't win?" Rumplestiltskin pushes the gun hard against Hook's chest before slowly backing up a couple paces. "We both know that's not true."
"Pretending to be brave." Hook actually laughs. "The last time, you needed the Dark One to make it believable."
"Things change."
Rumplestiltskin's ears are pricked behind him. He wants to (longs to) look behind him. Fury floods him that Hook is stealing the attention he should be able to lavish on the girl still on the ground behind him. He can hear her breathing, though (short and sharp, panicked in a way he never heard her in the other world). It's the most beautiful sound he's heard since his boy last called him Papa.
That breathing goes high and sharp just before Rumplestiltskin feels what must be the muzzle of another gun against his back.
"I'd drop that if I were you," says a high male voice. Nerves make it shake and tremble, but Belle's too close to all these weapons (and it's so easy, so quick, to turn a person into a corpse to be buried in what must have been an empty grave), so Rumplestiltskin lets the gun fall to the ground.
His power drops away.
"You remember Smee, don't you?" Hook asks gleefully. He scoops up Gold's gun and waves Rumplestiltskin back until he's right next to Belle, both of them facing the pirate and a short man in a bright red beanie. The girl beside him is so thin. So helpless. So vulnerable.
(The power in this world, for all it's steeped in the small details, is nothing compared to what he held in worlds with magic.)
"Can't say that I do," Rumplestiltskin says through a cold smile. He should care that Hook has the advantage of him. He should be counting bullets and calculating trajectories and figuring out if a human body really can block a bullet from hitting another, more worthy human behind him.
All he can concentrate on, all he can think of, is that there is a mere inch or two between his arm and Belle's. She's so close he could touch her. So close he can smell the rose and lilac smell she always brought into his home with her.
(So fragile she could be gone, really gone, in an instant.)
"Really, Crocodile," Hook says. He reaches out (the fever inside Gold peaks with the screech of lightning hitting ozone) and pulls Belle closer to him. She shuts her eyes and turns her face away from the hook he waves too near her eye. "This is what was left for you after Milah, eh? I guess maybe anyone's better than the Heartless Queen, and who knows?" The pirate's eyes devour Belle as if the shapeless gown she's wearing is transparent. "Maybe there's something under all this grime anyway. Should I find out?"
"If you do, you won't die quick," Rumplestiltskin promises.
His hands burn with magic he can't release. The dagger screams from its hiding place, impotent, useless, as crippled as him. If there were magic here, the red-hatted man would be a pile of ashes and the pirate would be a lesson in anatomy waiting to happen.
As it is, Rumplestiltskin is useless. Lying on the ground, hanging over a closed portal, hand wrapped around a severed limb—completely worthless.
He shouldn't have bothered trying to cover Regina's tracks and see the Ranger's death recognized. It will only slow the sheriff and the savior down.
As he shifts, Rumplestiltskin bites back a wince at the coals kindling in his ankle.
Belle bites Hook. Rumplestiltskin blinks and nearly misses it, but one second Hook is sneering in a manner that threatens to make Rumplestiltskin lose the contents of his stomach, the next he's stumbling back with a grimace and shaking his good hand. Belle spits and chokes, but glares (defiant, bold, so, so brave, and utterly beautiful).
Does she…does she remember?
Jones lifts his hook to strike Belle—and Rumplestiltskin goes mad.
He remembers shouldering in between Belle and Hook (his shoulder tingles as it brushes her though there are layers and layers between them). He remembers lifting his cane as red tinges his vision and dips everything in blood. The next thing he's aware of is Hook on the ground, then he blinks at the thundercrack of a gunshot aimed to the sky, then his cane is wrenched from his hand, then he's falling backward, pushed down to the cabin's floor.
And as easily as that (as if he were still Rumplestiltskin the Lame rather than Rumplestiltskin the Spinner), his rescue attempt has failed.
He doesn't deserve good things. He's always known this (since his mother vanished after his birth and his father sold him for immortality), but doesn't Belle deserve good things? She's worth a thousand valiant, white-armored protectors, yet somehow, all she has is him, and he is utterly incompetent without magic to back him up.
"Have fun reacquainting yourselves," Hook says as he throws Belle harshly to the cabin floor beside Rumplestiltskin. "It'll make the coming farewell all the sweeter."
The door slams shut with the echoes of locks being thrown, but Rumplestiltskin pays it no mind (there's a master key in his pocket and a sheriff and a savior headed his way). He's far more concerned with Belle and her new resemblance to a ragdoll against the corner of the cabin.
"Belle!" Half-crawling, half-dragging himself, Rumplestiltskin manages to reach her. His hands hover between them (no magic, no bravery, no rescuer here; only a man with hands that shake at even the thought of touching this miracle before him). "Belle?"
"Who's Belle?" she asks. The first words she's said to him in decades (in lifetimes) and they're a weapon as potent as any she might have learned to turn his way in their old world. She's so blank, so void, as she stares at him that Rumplestiltskin's heart seizes so painfully in his chest he can see the appeal of tearing it out and keeping it safely locked away.
"Belle." The name slips from him against his will (the tinkling sound his heart makes as it shatters). A eulogy he never gave. A prayer he never stopped reciting. A miracle he waits, with bated breath, to have yanked away from him.
Belle sits up, clumsy and disoriented, her hair frizzed every which way, her limbs too thin beneath the dirty gown, her eyes as clear and blue as ever in the fractured light leaking past boarded-up windows. "Am I Belle?" she asks. "Do I know you?"
"No." Rumplestiltskin falls backward. His leg is a mass of pains and bruises, but it is his heartbroken state that makes him immobile. The only thing he can move is his fingers, which scrabble uselessly for a bit of straw. "No, and best that it stay that way."
After all, what did he bring her but pain and persecution and more peril than she ever was aware of? Rumplestiltskin led her to her death (apparently not literally, but in every other way, and if he'd insisted on keeping her, he would have killed her much more permanently). Gold failed to save her despite all the advantages this world could offer him. In both his roles, he is useless to her.
(In just the same way, here in this world without magic, he'll be useless to his boy too.
Soon, if he succeeds, it'll be his boy laid out on a cold floor, helpless and locked away with the man he has doubtless learned to hate.)
Her eyes (still just as beautiful even if fogged) show clearly the working of her mind (still just as vibrant even if stifled), so Rumplestiltskin sees the hope she's beginning to attach to him.
"Who do you think you are?" he asks (anything to distract her from her close scrutiny; his skin burns to have her eyes on him without any visible connection, to be so close but to not touch).
"I know who I am," she says clearly, and he can't prevent his smile (because she always has, hasn't she, always so clear-eyed and full of conviction he couldn't match save in one thing). "I'm the one in between."
His blood runs cold. "What?"
"I'm in the middle. On one side, there's the strong one, who reaches for what she wants and refuses to go quiet. On the other side, there's silence, life full of endless enduring potential. And I'm in the middle. I'm not strong or brave. I'm just…existing."
Her voice has gone sing-song, as if she believes herself dreaming (Rumplestiltskin knows the feeling). As if she's told herself these lies so long they are all she has to cling to as reality (a reality as flawed and shallow as Storybrooke itself).
Rumplestiltskin is filled with a surging terror, like she's slipping away right in front of him. His hand scarcely shakes at all as he reaches out to draw a finger down her cold hand.
"You're not in the middle," he says, his voice strained. "You're the center. The heart of it all."
She's startled, her expression much the same as he imagines his often was in her presence in their old world. It is better that she not know him, but she never hesitated to tell him who she thought he was (the one time her clear-eyed vision failed her) and how can he fail this one chance to return the favor?
A bell that doesn't ring anymore.
Not if Rumplestiltskin has anything to say about it.
"You're a hero, willing to sacrifice for others," he says, the words torn from somewhere deep and hidden (cherished) inside him. "You're a beautiful woman who sees that same beauty in even the ugliest of things. You make everyone around you want to be better, to go back to the best versions of themselves, and that's the rarest thing of all. So I know you may not entirely know who you are, but please, whenever you look in the mirror, know that you're important. You're more than a hero—you're good."
She's crying. The sunlight struggles to reach her and is refracted off a tear sliding down her cheek.
This world is no different than the old one. He always makes her cry. (Even when he's trying to be honest, to be kind, he destroys whatever he touches.) He always endangers her. (Even when he holds all the cards, he can't help but lead her to ruin.)
Rumplestiltskin pulls his hand from hers and wishes he had a cup to cradle instead.
She's quite used to being cold. Maybe the cells have changed (maybe someone's actually in the cell with her instead of just adjacent to her), but a lifetime of habit doesn't disappear overnight. If there's anything she knows how to do, it's to weather the cold nights.
She picks a corner away from windows (not too far from this man who is locked inside with her) and curls herself into a ball, hands and feet tucked away as much as possible. Closing her eyes helps her center herself as she begins the slow process of painting herself somewhere else. Somewhere warm. Somewhere soft. Somewhere not constrained by four walls and a door that locks from the outside and a window she can't reach.
Dimly, sounds drift toward her. She thinks the man is moving, a painstaking approach that reminds her of where she really is. If she cared more about the next moments than her imagined dreamscape, she might try to run. She probably can. The man doesn't move very fast; she remembers the crutch he used to help him get between her and the man with salt eyes.
But she's tired, more drained than she's ever been. She almost misses the quiet cell where her neighbor's humming could soothe her into sleep. So she squeezes her eyes shut and tries to keep herself in that safe place. Safe, and not lonely. Not isolated. Because when she can fully imagine herself there, there's always someone with her.
Strange. That seemed like such a fantastical improbability before today, the idea that someone could share her space, that anyone can open the door of her cell and step inside.
But now here she is.
Her dreamscape shatters when the man drops something over her. The room is still dim, lit more by flashes of her panic as she bolts upright than by the sun. But whatever he's dropped, or placed, really, around her shoulders, is silky. Heavy. Warm.
It's his coat. He placed his suit coat around her shoulders, and now it puddles in the dust between them.
"I'm sorry," he says. He sounds helpless, a marked difference to when he was talking to their captor. "I…I didn't mean to frighten you."
"Th-thank you," she offers.
It's the first time she's ever said those words (unless repeating them in endless litanies in her head count; silent gratitude to her neighbors that she is not alone).
The shattered light allows her to see in real time his stricken expression fade into the same kind of resignation she imagines is often displayed on her own face (she wonders if she looks like him; if they share attributes in the same way they do a cell).
(Is he in between too?)
"No matter."
Is she supposed to say more? The silence (her constant companion) now seems awkward, as clumsy as she seems to be outside her normal habitat. Her mind drifts, trying to remember if silence has ever been anything but perfectly ordinary.
"Where have you been?" he asks.
She relaxes. Apparently, it was his responsibility to keep the talking (conversation? is that what this is?) going. "In a cell," she replies.
"And where was this cell? Someone told me you were dug up."
"I think I was underground," she realizes. She feels slow, out of touch, but it really does only occur to her now that she was trapped belowground. No wonder the sun struggled so hard to reach her. "The window was small and high up. So high it only ever let in murky light."
Like this cell. The windows aren't high here, but the boards nailed over the glass block them in nearly as well as tons of packed earth.
"How long were you kept there?" His voice rasps, sadness and fury condensed into a human voice too weak to hold it all.
"Always," she sighs. "That must mean I belong there."
A sudden movement scatters the light and sends silence skittering away. The man, she realizes (of course, who else? she has lost all impetus of her own). It's strange having movement and initiative, motivation and action, that is not her own, so close to her, reaching out to her in ripples that tickle her and call up strange memories (dreams?) of a time when she too could make her own choices and decide her own fate.
"No!" the man says, so vehement she wonders if she should be frightened. She's afraid of the man in salt-drenched leather, and terrified of the woman with honey eyes and poison lips. But this man… He's so close, so near, so intense, that she wonders at her own lack of fear.
"No, Belle," he says again. "You were made for seeing the world. Being a hero. Showing everyone just what you can do. Not for being kept caged at the behest of monsters."
The coat smells good. Snow and electricity, wool and chemicals. Naming the scents brings the concepts alive to her mind, like magic. It's also, she thinks as she wraps herself in it, warmer than anything she's ever felt.
"Who are you?" she asks.
Maybe she's not the one who's supposed to ask the questions, though. Her inquiry seems to stump him. He's quiet for so long she wonders if she should apologize.
(She wonders if she dreamed him up while trying to fall into a sleep deep enough not to be wracked with chills.)
But she doesn't want to apologize (she wants an answer).
She wonders if Belle would.
"Mr. Gold," he finally says, a mere whisper in the dark.
An answer. She asked, and he answered her.
She (Belle?) bites back her elation and asks, "Do you belong in a cell?"
He doesn't answer, but this time, he doesn't need to. Just his name makes bright lights explode in her mind, opening up vast vistas and mesmerizing mysteries.
"No," she answers for them both. "You weren't made for a cage either."
His breath audibly catches, but she doesn't have time to ask more questions (a pastime so novel she doubts she'll ever tire of it, particularly if he keeps answering her). A motor sounds outside, the slam of doors penetrates the heavy wood, and voices are raised in a maelstrom of words she can't distinguish.
"Don't worry," Gold says. He sounds strange somehow. Bitter, she realizes, slowly. Somewhat triumphant, too, a curious mixture of smug and defeated all at once. "Those are the valiant heroes. The white knights. They've come to rescue you."
A lifetime (perhaps multiple lifetimes) falls away from her as she reaches out. For warmth. For safety. For proof that she is not alone in the dark. His hand trembles when she finds it, but she holds on as tightly as she can.
Are you the person who's always shared my dreams? she wants to ask.
Before she can, the door flies open.
Whatever Mr. Gold claimed, it's no rescuer there for her. Instead, it's the black-garbed man. He snarls something about crocodiles, about collateral—calls Mr. Gold something that rings like golden straw against the empty places in her mind—and then she's being pulled upward. A puppet. A ragdoll, manipulated and pushed into place.
Her captor pulls her outside into the cold daylight. The brightness blinds her and makes her shrink into the coat she holds onto with both hands. Behind her, a door slams. Behind her. She is out. Out. Free (save the hand holding onto her, the cold steel at her throat).
But.
But the man. Mr. Gold. Lonely and…not…not a…
Who is he?
(He wasn't made for a cage.)
He's still inside. Locked away like the strong one who endures and the brave one who hums.
The sky is so vast. It spreads across the whole top of the world, endless and rolling onward, so massive that her eyesight cuts out before the blue does. The trees that surround them are like pillars, holding up the clouds rolling in strange shapes and darkening the land below. She blinks, and blinks again, and a third time. Still, the world is more beautiful than she could have imagined. Still, she is here, on the outside, while all the people she's ever known are yet locked away.
It doesn't seem fair. What has she ever done to deserve this leniency?
(You're a beautiful woman.)
There are other people here. They are behind a blocky shape she thinks is made for riding in, and both of them hold small shapes in their hands. One, a woman with flowing golden hair like a halo, points her object ahead. At her. The other, a man who doesn't seem frightening, holds his object up to his face as he speaks hasty words she cannot hear.
"Well, it's come to this, eh, love?" the salt-hatred man says behind her. The blade isn't at her throat anymore; instead, it's at her back. "I suppose we play the hand we're dealt, then. Never trust in allies."
(You're a hero.)
"Oh, good, you're here," he calls out.
The woman squints at him.
"Gold called me here for some kind of deal. When I got here, I found this young woman tied up inside. But Gold—he's crazy. When I wouldn't buy her, he said there'd be other deals and pulled out a gun. I tried to get her to safety, but she seems confused. Maybe not right in the head, if you know what I mean."
"Let her go, then," the woman says.
"Where is Mr. Gold?" asks the man, now holding an object identical to the woman's. He has eyes almost the same color as the sky. She's not sure she's ever seen anyone with eyes that color before.
(You're good.)
"I had to push him away. His cane's over there." The black-garbed man makes some kind of movement behind her. It pulls her up closer against him, and she feels a prick of pain, a droplet sliding down her spine. Her hair pulls uncomfortably. "And I would let her go, Swan, but let's be honest, the only reason you're listening to my side of the story is because she's standing here. I'd hate for an innocent to be hurt here."
"Doesn't sound like something a good Samaritan would say."
"That's not exactly how I'd describe myself."
"Bring her away from the cabin," the blue-eyed man commands.
She holds her breath, because she's thought a lot of commands herself. No one has ever obeyed them.
Her captor takes a step. Her feet tangle up beneath her. He wrenches her upright and a yelp is torn from her throat.
"Hey!" the woman calls. "Let her go!"
"Now!" adds the man.
Like they want to help.
(You're the center. The heart of it all.)
"He's lying!" she cries. Her voice cracks, but she almost thinks she can hear the lulling hum of the girl in the next cell over (wherever that is). "He locked me up. He locked both of us up!"
Her arm is wrenched behind her. The blade is back at her throat.
"Now what did you have to go and do that for?" he croons in her ear. "You just made this so much more complicated than it had to be."
"He's lying," she chokes out again before a line of fire is drawn down the side of her neck and drops to run in a straight line along the side of her arm.
She whimpers.
Behind them, a door crashes open. Her captor tries to turn—she feels her feet slip beneath her—the woman shouts something—thunder cracks through the air, louder than anything she's ever heard—something grabs her from behind, no, not her, her captor, a lunge, a shout, momentum swinging her in place until she crashes with a flurry of pain to the ground.
"Gold! Gold, stop! Gold, let him go! Gold!"
Gold. Gold. (Gold straw in a gold room and gold feelings unspooling in her stomach).
Mr. Gold.
She lifts her head from the ball she's rolled into and sees him there. He looks completely different, out here in the light. His mysteries are taken away, and behind them is revealed a man with bared teeth, wide eyes nearly feral, and claws that hold a cane against her captor's throat. The salt-hatred man only laughs and laughs, his mouth spewing taunts as easily as blood that trickles down the side of his chin.
Then, abruptly, the other two people (who knew there were so many people in the world?) are there, the man pulling Mr. Gold back and away, holding his arms wrapped around his chest, first to corral him and then to keep him standing as the cane rolls away into the grass.
She curls her toes into that grass, luxuriating in the feeling, burying her nose into the collar of Mr. Gold's coat wrapped around her. The woman is diving atop her captor. Something flashes silver in her hands and then there are cuffs affixed to her captor's wrist, the other dangling limply until the woman wrenches off his hook and drags him to the blocky shape she'd taken refuge behind.
"Help her," rasps Mr. Gold. He shrugs and shrugs again until the man with sky-eyes gingerly releases him. "I'm not going anywhere. Help Belle."
"Belle?" the man asks. He gives a wary look Mr. Gold's way before he heads toward her. She thinks she should flinch away. She thinks she should wonder if this man will only take her to another cell, another prison. She thinks this is probably the last time she will see so much of the sky and feel so warm and know what might be her name. "Belle? Is that your name?"
Mr. Gold is watching her. The ferocity is masked. The feral wrath is walled away. He watches her with eyes so soft they reflect golden. He is small and hunched and alone; she's fairly sure he's in pain.
"Yes," she says without looking away. "Yes. My name is Belle."
A/N: AAAHHHH! I cannot tell you how excited I am to finally get to this chapter! Can you believe it took me over 100,000 words to get Rumbelle in the same place?! Me neither. Anyway, finally my favorite couple is here, and we're getting closer all the time to some others of my favorite characters coming along, so I hope you're all still enjoying the ride!