When they arrived back at the castle, she was still shaking and unsteady on her legs, which was a feat considering most of her weight was on him.
"Sit! Sit! Sit!" he cried, summoning her chaise from the library and practically pushing her onto it. She burned. Everywhere she touched him, he felt as though he were on fire and he was happy when he could finally deposit her somewhere else. She coughed as she hit the couch, probably a reaction to the swelling of her throat. That would get worse if he didn't do something about it.
"Please…please-"
"Save your voice!" he snapped at her as she choked out her words, unsure what she was pleading for. But then she looked at him with her unfocused, watery eyes and offered her hands to him, and he realized. She wasn't offering her hands, she was offering the rope that bound them. She was begging for him to release her. She was lucky. There was Dark Magic in those ropes; it was a spell he himself had cast numerous times, including on Robin Hood. They couldn't be loosened by ordinary means or even sawed through with a knife. It had to be Dark Magic that removed them. He didn't know who had done it, the Dragon or the Sea Witch, were both certainly capable, but it didn't matter. Fortunately for her, his magic was darker and stronger than Maleficent and Ursula's.
"Don't speak, you'll only do more damage." He tried to be gentler, but it was difficult to do when he looked at the rope and his anger overwhelmed him. So instead he focused on the offensive cords, he let his magic flow over them, let it overtake the enchantments within. He watched with relief as they began to loosen and finally dropped to the floor where they vanished.
She let out a noise like a whimper once they were gone, one that forced him to look up at her because he couldn't tell if the noise was relief or pain. Or maybe a little bit of both. She didn't look back at him, merely stared down at her wrists, her face twisted up as though she might burst into tears. He looked down at them himself. The witches had kept her from him for hours, and the damage was evident in the marks on her arms.
The skin at her wrists was chaffed and dry, as if she'd been rubbing them for hours. The ligature marks were every shade of red from burgundy to light pink, but in some places they were worse. There were a few locations where purple and blue dots collected, and there were a couple of lines where the skin had been pinched. If they'd kept her like that for too much longer or kept the ropes tighter, she might have lost her hands. The devils! They were worse than he was.
And there she sat, looking them over, nearly in tears, shaking head to toe! She knew the extent of his magic, she knew that he could heal her with only a wave of his hand, and yet now was the time she was going to choose to listen to his orders and stay unfailingly silent?! Not even to ask for his help?! Stubborn woman…
He let out an irritated sigh. "Well, for heaven's sake, dearie, I'd hate for you to break your habit of silent suffering and actually follow orders now!"
And then he grabbed her hands and pulled them closer with a yank that forced her whole body forward. She didn't resist, merely flopped forward like a rag doll before he put his hands over her wrists and used his magic to heal them. It took only a second, half a second, before he pulled them back and her skin was just as pale and beautiful as it always was. He had to give it to the royals, they knew how to take care of themselves in those fine palaces of theirs.
He moved his eyes up to watch her, to see if he could spot her relief or if it chased any of her tears away. But it hadn't. Instead, she just sat there still shaking, still looking at her hands and the work he'd done there. How was it possible that she looked even more like she might cry now than she had before? And why wasn't she saying anything?! She never listened to him before, why would she start now?! He felt his own chest tighten as he watched her. This afternoon he'd sent her outside to punish her for talking, but now he felt like he would do just about anything to get her talking again. He hadn't wanted this.
"What else?!" he demanded so suddenly she jumped instead of responding. "Well, don't be shy now, dearie, you'll be black and blue by morning and I'll be disappointed in having misjudged you-"
"I don't understand-"
"Don't talk, just point!" he yelled, secretly happy she'd said even those three words. He wanted her to defy him, to talk to him, to go back to the way she'd been before, but that meant healing her completely, including her throat. He could do it now, without a word or indication from her, he'd seen the places Ursula had touched, he could simply heal that, but for some reason he wanted her to interact with him, to emerge from this state, to point, to ask for help, to talk to him.
"What. Hurts?" he demanded again, begging her to do something other than sit there and stare. He could make this all go away. He had a memory potion upstairs in his tower. He could easily give it to her with a sleeping draught, put her to bed, heal her, and when she woke up it would all be gone. But he didn't want to do that, not if he could help it. He'd already given it to her once and compared to that event, this was nothing. She was strong. She could overcome this, he knew she could. She just had to try. She had to fight back against the shock and the fear. She'd been doing that ever since he walked into her life, he knew she could do it again.
His heart jumped when she gave a small sigh, looked him in his eyes, then crossed her hands so they could move up the length of her arms. That was good! It was something.
He quickly replaced her hands with his own, let his magic flare, and healed her. Not that there was much there to be healed. As the spell worked, he could feel where the magic concentrated and everything was superficial. It congregated mostly in her muscle. She'd had no cuts so that meant that she was simply banged up from her time with them. She would have bruised on her arms. But he'd seen what Ursula had done to her. He knew there was more to be done.
"What else?" he urged, finally managing to at least sound calm.
She swallowed, and finally he got a response out of her that wasn't so timid or even shaky. She looked down at herself as if she was taking an assessment. The problem was that the assessment went on far too long with her saying nothing and pointing nothing out to him. There had been a tentacle wrapped and squeezing around her entire midsection and yet she didn't make any motion there. Was it because she didn't want him to touch her there? Did she too feel like she burned when they touched?
He watched as she examined herself, twisting this way and that, until she finally winced and took in a sharp breath of obvious pain.
Suddenly he didn't care what she wanted. In a flash he'd gone from waiting for her permission, to taking it for himself. She was hurting. Whether she was shy about being touched or not, it hurt him to see her like that. He was respectable, he'd buy her a new book and she'd get over it.
He reached up under her chin, careful not to let his hands touch anymore of her than necessary, and unclasped the cloak she wore so he could see what he was doing. Then he moved his hands and let his magic roam over her. Again, it was mostly muscle damage, her stomach her hips. But when he got to her sides…his magic congregated at the bone. Two of her ribs. Bones were the most difficult to heal and they never healed just right, not with magic. There was always the risk the injury could come back. But fortunately for her, the magic didn't go deep. The bones were injured but not really broken. It was probably a fracture. Still, it was probably the greatest source of her pain, more than enough to make her wince. Had she just expected she'd go about her days like that until it healed? Had she assumed that it would get better on its own, and she wouldn't be maimed?
"I'll never understand why women have absolutely no trouble with nagging men on every little thing, but insist they are fine when they clearly aren't," he mumbled as he finished the work.
He heard her take in a breath, let his heart flutter with hope for a moment at the possibility of her arguing with him just like they usually did, but no noise came from her. When he finished on her he glanced up, what he saw from her was better than words.
She let out a defeated sigh, held her head up high, and placed her hand across her throat, silently asking him to heal her. That was the Belle he knew. She was still shaking, she still looked stunned, but at least she was communicating with him. And asking for her voice back meant further communication. It also meant more conversations like the one they'd had earlier that day, but he'd take it. Watching her ask was a better prize than he could have hoped for so soon. He just couldn't let her see it.
"As much as it pains me to give you your voice back so you can continue to evaluate every aspect of my life, if you'd screamed in the first place, we might not be having this conversation to begin with."
And with that he placed his hands at her neck, he let them burn as he touched her skin, and directed the magic to do its work. It was muscle damage, nothing to her back or her neck, no bones were injured, but her throat still took longer than he'd thought it would. And when it was done the swelling was gone. Other than being shaken, she was going to be okay. Nothing a little time and some tea couldn't fix. At that thought, he used his magic to summon her chipped cup from downstairs and made sure it was brimming with hot tea.
"Drink this," he ordered, pressing the cup into her hands. "It'll help."
Her fingers brushed against his as she took it, a small reminder of just how close he was to her, and he instantly picked himself up from off the floor and stepped away as she drank.
"There wasn't time to scream," she commented in a small voice after taking a large gulp. "The woman in black, Maleficent, she had a hand over my mouth before I could. I never saw her coming. First Robin Hood now-"
"Yes, yes, clearly my protections need updating," he snarled as he urged her to drink. Though he didn't know why. "And it's comments like that making me consider taking your voice away again. I could use a few days of peace and quiet!"
There she was. A small smirk as she used trembling hands to raise the cup to her mouth once more and drink. She'd seen the humor in his threat. That was good.
"I'm sorry, it's just a lot to take in."
"Not my problem," he commented. She was fine. Staying here and trying to make her smile would have been going above and beyond what she needed. What he needed, now that she was safe, was to test his theory. Afterall, the whole reason he'd gone wasn't to get her back, it was all for an experiment. He had to go.
"Where…where are you going?!" she called after him.
To get what belonged to him so that his collection could be complete once more. But to tell her that…
"Why to reinforce the protection spells of course!" he stated. "No doubt I'll be off again soon and this time I'll be sure the boundaries are protected from evil intentions so that this doesn't happen again! After all, I'm a busy man…I don't have time to spare running after you and making sure you don't wind up in trouble again and risking one of my precious souvenirs! So careful next time you decide to go wandering about, dearie. I might just leave you to the wolves."
But he wouldn't.
Perhaps that stray thought had been his, perhaps it was the Seer or maybe just an echo of the words Belle had said on the bluff. But those words whispered tried and true in his mind. He wouldn't do that. No matter what he told himself, how loud he shouted in his head that he didn't care, that Regina was wrong about everything except the pretty part…those three words were undeniable. He wouldn't leave her in danger. It must have been the last dregs of humanity left in him.
"Thank you!"
"What?!" he yelled, nearly at the door, turning around to look at her. Those words had not been in his head. She'd cried them out just before he could leave her alone to compose herself.
"Thank you," she repeated kindly. "For…not leaving me to the wolves. For saving my life…thank you."
You're welcome...
That was all he had to say. The words were right on the tip of his tongue, so automatic that he'd opened his mouth to say them before he caught himself. It was the polite response to the words that she'd just uttered. A simple "you're welcome" would suffice.
But telling her she was welcome carried certain implications; implications that he'd only just now begun to wrestle with in his mind. He wasn't about to speak those words out loud, lest she realize those implications as well.
Given what had just happened, he couldn't think of anything else to say. So instead he closed his mouth, shook his head, and left.
I loved writing this chapter. I loved building their budding intimacy into it and including his thoughts on the incident as well as how she copes through his eyes was fun. I tried really hard to make his adoration of her a natural thing. So when he's thinking about it he forces himself to downplay it, when he's not thinking about it the truth of how important she is to him and how much of a priority she is comes out.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Jennifer Baratta and Grace5231973 for those really kind comments you left me. We've only got one more chapter left for the Gauntlet chapters and then we're moving on. It's an important chapter though, it confirms and corrects a few things we've seen in the show over the years, one gaping plot hole that was never really filled in. Peace and Happy Reading!
