"Belle! You cannot do this! You can't go with this…beast!"

He knew the King meant for his words to hurt him, but there was nothing that he could call him that he hadn't already heard or called himself a hundred times over by now. And the way he felt, the wonderful feeling that came from a deal well made, there was no chance he was going to be hurt by the King's words, especially given the situation. Now they were going to raise an objection? He could think of so many ways in which they could have fought harder against this deal. As far as he was concerned, the King wanted this to happen. He was probably relieved that he didn't have to do the unthinkable in front of everyone.

As he placed a hand over his chest and feigned offense at the proclamation, she turned back to the pair of them.

"Father, Gaston…it's been decided," she stated confidently.

Indeed, it had. The moment she'd said the words he felt chords of magic bind to him, preparing him to hold to the promise he'd given. This wasn't the King's deal. He'd wanted him to think that, but it had never been his to make. It was always hers. She'd fallen right into his trap.

"You know…" he muttered, coming up to stand just over her shoulder and look into their faces, "she's right. The deal…is struck." He made sure to say it with finality, with weight so that the decision that had been made here would reverberate through the walls of the hall and in every heart. She was making a great sacrifice for them. They should feel it.

"Oh! Congratulations on your little war!" he called out, one final taunt before he spun the princess around, away from her family and friends, then led her out the door with a hand against her back, lest she think twice about their agreement. He'd wanted her to make it, but was also well versed in the topic of regret and what it could make people do. He wanted her to know that he was beside her, just in case she got any ideas about running.

In truth, he would have thought that removing her would have been more difficult. She was the Princess of this nation, the only child and heir of it's monarch, he expected a little more fight, for servants and guards to wail perhaps, for her fiancé to actually attempt to attack him, maybe even for her father to grow a set of balls and run out after them and try and change his mind. He expected that sooner or later he would have had to remove her from her home using magic.

But nothing happened.

They encountered no servants. There was no gnashing of teeth or clashing of swords. There wasn't even a cry good-bye from her beloved father. They nearly made it out of the castle before he realized that nothing was going to happen, and he needed some way to get her back to his palace. The magic that he intended to use for a quick getaway wasn't what he wanted for an easy escape. She was a strong girl, a smart one too, she'd been groomed to be a Queen and that gave her certain perceptions of herself that he'd wanted to wipe away for what faced her. In the case of a quick getaway tearing her from her family quickly and dramatically like that would have been ideal, but now, having walked all this way to nowhere, it seemed silly. He wanted to leave her with an impression of his power, of his magic. He wanted her to know that though she had once been considered powerful, she no longer was. He was the dominant figure now. She was the inferior.

Fortunately, magic made everything easier. Quickly enough he devised a plan, and with his magic, he was able to put it into place so that by the time the doors to the palace opened, there was a simple carriage drawn by horses waiting for them. Obviously, they weren't going to take the carriage back home, not naturally, of course. They were at least a two-week journey from the Dark Castle, and while he was looking forward to figuring out what his new prize meant for the future, he wasn't interested in spending that much time with her. No, he had a spell in mind, a powerful one, too. The spell he was going to cast was a bit odd, created by someone in Wonderland. It could be used to make the distance between two points shorter. Somehow... He didn't know a single person that actually understood the spell, including himself. It wasn't a time travel spell, and yet it did work by stitching time together. It wasn't a traveling spell, but it also worked by making things shorter. What it was didn't really matter to him, only that as he used it, she would feel it. She would know magic was at work and that he was creating it. That was sorely needed as he held his hand out to help her into their carriage, and she turned her nose up at the offering, choosing to climb in on her own.

Once they were both situated, sitting opposite one another in the carriage, he held up his hand and flung it as someone might flick their wrist to use a whip. The horses whinnied, and then they were off! The carriage surged forward, inside, there was quiet.

She didn't cry. Why didn't she cry? Women, Princesses, in fact, were known for blubbering about constantly about the smallest of things. They hadn't gone by her room before they left. Wasn't she upset about her things? Her pretty gowns? Her books? Her vanity? Her father? Everything she was leaving behind?! He would be. As they moved, looked over his shoulder and out the window, back at her precious palace, but she said not a word. Once the palace was far too distant for her to watch she turned her gaze on him. But didn't. It was the strangest thing, but for the longest time she looked at him, but he had the suspicion that she wasn't really seeing him. Then, finally, it happened. Though her eyes never moved he was suddenly very aware that she was looking at him. Actually looking. Though others frequently cast their eyes down or stared at his nose or forehead to avoid his eyes, she looked right into him with those same fiery, determined eyes he'd seen before. It sent a jolt that rocked him from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, and he was sure that jolt had nothing to do with the quality of the road they were on or the pothole they'd just hit.

He didn't take his eyes off her. Though he was desperate to start the spell, he'd never backed down from a challenge, and he was certain this was what their staring contest was. Mr. Oak had once told him that when he met a dog, he was to stare it in the eyes until one of them blinked. That was the first sign of power. He wasn't going to be the one that blinked first, even if he had just used magic to keep his eyes open.

They sat there like that for a few more minutes, long past the time that he would have thought she'd surrender out of humility and politeness that all girls like her were taught. It was fine with him. He was trying to induce something. He was trying to either force the Seer to talk to him about her, or trigger a vision, something, anything that might explain the sense of deja vu he found itching through his skin every time he saw her. He had to place her. He had to figure out what she knew, he had to identify her! But nothing happened. No vision, no voice, no sudden epiphany. Then, finally, after some time, she blinked.

"Where are we going?" she asked, along with her surrender.

Such a simple question. Usually people saved their conversations with him for important questions. Certainly nothing as silly as what she'd just asked. Wasn't the answer obvious?

"Home!" he announced. He'd said it odd, even he could hear, with an accent like he hadn't heard in years, but he covered it up quickly enough with a laugh. That should have done it, should have gotten some kind of reaction out of her, but he watched as she narrowed her gaze in his direction. He'd brought her so that he would have an epiphany, so why did he feel like she was the one putting pieces of a puzzle together. It was unnerving. Suddenly he was regretting not just simply taking her away with the force of magic. They could have been separated by now. Perhaps it was time to stop staring and work his magic.

"And how far is 'home' exactly?" she questioned further.

Yes, certainly time for some magic. "Oh, never fear, dearie," he stated using a sinister voice. "We shall arrive in…no time!" He blinked. He turned his head out the window and began to gather magic up and into himself. It would have been easier magic to do with the dagger in hand to channel it, but he could do it on his own. The colors outside their windows began to blur together. Then they blurred so that there were definite objects and shapes again. It was like when a child spun around so fast it seemed like they weren't spinning at all. He set the spell in motion and felt energy drain from him as he used it. They were a blur to the outside world as well. They would speed up and then slow down, speed up and then slow down. He closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of his seat to focus through it. He could have watched her, but it seemed like too much work to study her and keep the spell going. And it wasn't as if this was his only job. Once he got home and handled her, there would be ogres to kill; an easy task, but still one that required magic. He'd be tired tonight. He'd let her "adjust" to her new environment, then see how she handled herself when he returned. And speaking of returning.

There was a change in the air around him as he began to settle the spell, to lessen the distances and the speed at which they traveled now that they were back in the little village by his castle; now the mountain; now the path. He didn't need to open his eyes to know that he was home. He could feel it. Not only was the sun obviously going down, darkening the carriage, but there was a chill in the air that came from fall settling into the mountain. He could feel the carriage wheels shift ever so slightly from ice the higher up they went, and that was when he forced the spell to stop working and remembered her shoulders. He felt things like cold, he allowed himself to still perceive them though he didn't have to feel them if he didn't want to. Now that he was feeling the sensation through his gloves he remembered how bare her shoulders had been, how naked that dress she was wearing left her arms. He forced his eyes open when he heard something odd across the carriage and realized that she was rubbing her bare hands together for warmth. He watched her looking down at them, creating friction to warm herself even for just a moment. He silently dared her to ask him for a blanket, for gloves, a cloak, anything that might help her situation because asking for any of those things would speak volumes about her personality. But she didn't ask. Not even when she looked up and caught him staring at her again and he found himself asking the question of himself.

If she asked for something, would he give it to her? Did he want her to ask?

What did it matter if she didn't ask? What did it matter at all? They were home. With another swoop of magic, he ordered the gates ahead to open for them, and she turned in her seat to behold for the first time the Dark Castle, her new home. And behold she did. Once she turned to look, she didn't turn back, not to look at him or around her at the grounds. That was a stupid choice really. It was dark. The castle was barely visible to human eyes. It would be a dark gray against a black sky for the most part. Their recent autumn snowfall had dusted the grounds with white, but that still didn't leave much to see. Still, she chose to remain focused on what lay ahead. Not even when he ordered the horses to stop at the front steps to drop them off. Perhaps a useful bit of information?

This time, when he went to help her down she took his hand, but released it quickly as if realizing she hadn't really wanted to touch it. But she didn't look at him. Just kept looking straight ahead then up, up, up, as if she'd never seen anything like it before. Her reaction was overdone. Honestly, he knew that the castles in her Kingdom were not as grand as this one but for a Princess to have such a reaction at all would be an embarrassment for her family. Perhaps that was why her father had let her go so easy. Maybe he wasn't as attached as he claimed.

Finally out of the carriage, he used his magic to get rid of it and led her inside. She gasped just before the doors closed, and he smirked as he urged her forward. She was a slow one.

"Keep up, dearie!" he ordered as he escorted her into the Grand Hall. The fire roared to life just as it always did, but he didn't slow down to allow her to warm. Considering what was about to happen, doing so would only seem cruel. Behind him the sound of her footsteps were uneven. For a few steps she'd take long strides, then he could hear them slow again before she stumbled and sped up. Looking about, was she? Still? A classic dreamer, perhaps. Odd for a Princess but not completely unheard of. What would be entirely unheard of was if she took what was about to happen to her well.

"Where-where are you taking me?" he heard her mumble behind him.

"Let's call it…your room," he answered, sending a glance over his shoulder at her.

It was a mean trick to play, he knew that, but she was technically his prisoner and he had errands to run and ogres to kill. He wasn't about to just let her lounge about his home and potentially run away, not when he had work for her to do. It had been decades since he'd had a caretaker or a maid in here. Although he preferred the solitude there was plenty that would keep her busy. Later.

For now, their tour ended down in the depths of the castle, an area he rarely came to except when he had a prisoner. Like now! He used his magic to swing open the door to one of the roomier, more friendly cells and waited for her reaction as they came to a stop. She peered inside, and he saw upset on her face the moment her mind began to put it all together.

"My room?!" she cried in an accusatory voice. Now there was the emotion he had been expecting to see all this time! He knew she had it in her to be ordinary in at least one way, it had just taken some time to figure out how.

"Well, it sounds a lot nicer than 'dungeon'," he responded with a smile. Before she could run or scream or cry, he gave her the smallest of shoves to get her over the threshold, then grabbed the door and slammed it shut, ensuring that it was closed and locked before he turned to leave. He could hear her whine and scream and pound at the door as he made his way back upstairs and to his tower to fetch what he'd need from his workshop before returning to her Kingdom. He would have thought the little brat would have been happy. After all, he had ogres to kill.


True story, I didn't really intend for this chapter to be as long as it was, but the more I wrote it the more I realized that taking the time to dissect this strange first moment of alone time from Rumple's POV was important to the fiction. I got to do a lot of really fun things with this fiction, especially with the Belle chapters because in some ways they were already written, the POV just needed to be shifted. A lot of times I went to MK&U, just copied the chapters and then slowly rewrote it using the Moments version. But, I also had one other reference to work with from Moments Seen and Unseen. Chapter 20, Reflections of a Past Life, in MS&U is one of my favorite Moments chapters because it is one of the few times that Moments readers got a glimpse into Rumple's head. That chapter and all that Rumple and Belle talk about in it sort of became a guide for a few of these chapters, but for these early chapters there was one line in particular that was very helpful. In Reflections of a Past Life Belle asks him when he fell in love with her. His response? "I think I always did." That's meant to sort of be a discovery for him in that moment, like he didn't realize how long he'd loved her until he really stopped to think about it. So in these early chapters I enjoyed putting in little hints of that line. It's things that Rumbellers and a future Rumple will say "you're acting that way because you love her you dolt!" but leave the present Rumple confused and dismissive. It'll be that way until a very specific point when we hit a vocab/tone change. I'm interested to see if you'll spot it.

Thank you Jennifer Baratta, Alarda, Grace5231973, and MissAmande for your reviews on the last chapter. Keep some of those thoughts and questions coming! You might not be so far off on some of them. Sorry for the long drawn out chapter here, up next we have an iconic scene before we get into the 2x19 part of this. Let's continue, shall we! Peace and Happy Reading!