Chapter 25—"Someone Who Understands"
Killian had just returned from cosseting King George through the extremely obvious decision to accept Zelena's help. George's armies were doing surprisingly badly against the rag-tag group that Snow White and George's misbehaving son had assembled, so it seemed to Killian that accepting help from someone with a vested interest in keeping you on your throne was an absolute no-brainer. Yet George had hesitated, probably because Zelena wasn't asking for anything yet. They both knew that Zelena would demand something unpleasant eventually, probably a chunk of George's kingdom or gold he didn't have. Yet faced with losing all of his kingdom now or some of it later, George made the sensible choice: he threw in with Zelena.
Having made the same choice, Killian really couldn't fault the man. Zelena was unpredictable, petty, and brilliant, but the woman had power. Real power. She wasn't the Dark One, but Killian wasn't sure how the power fell out between them. Zelena seemed torn between idolizing Rumplestiltskin and hating him, but so long as she helped Killian against him, the pirate didn't really care what Zelena felt.
And, well, he did despise playing her errand boy, but at least it kept him out of her bed. Killian wasn't going to go there unless it benefited him, and so far he saw no reason to hop into bed with a woman who might just steal his heart to keep him there.
"Let me pass!" The bellow startled Killian as walked down a hallway near the entrance to Zelena's castle, and like any reasonably curious individual, he detoured to investigate.
One of the guards said something he couldn't catch, but the large and angry man who had just thrown the second guard to the ground certainly got his attention.
"I am an ally of the Queen, and she will make you regret it if you do not let me pass right now." The speaker was a tall—taller than even Killian, who was not accustomed to looking up at anyone—and ridiculously muscled man with dark hair and blue eyes. He looked pompously full of himself, and for Killian to notice that, he had to be quite the egotist.
The guards looked dubious, and Mister Muscles looked indignant, so Killian decided it was time to step in. Even if he accomplished nothing, this would pass the time quite nicely.
"Easy there, mate. Yelling at Her Majesty's guards won't get you anywhere—except maybe straight into a dungeon." He approached with a friendly smile, but Muscles glared right away.
"I'm not your mate."
Killian snorted. "Then why don't you tell me who you are, and then we might be able to work something out."
"Why should I answer a"—that was a definite sneer—"pirate? You have no authority here."
"Aye, not officially. But this pirate is the captain of the finest ship on the seven seas, and I'm also an ally of the Queen—except I'm one who her guards actually recognize, and whose name she knows." Killian shot the other man a nasty smile. He'd never felt the need to be nice to idiots or the weak, and Muscles here looked to be both.
"Sir Gaston, rightful lord of Avonlea!"
Killian cocked his head. "Only a knight? How unimpressive." He snickered. "Most of the Queen's allies are far more important than that."
"Says a mere pirate." Gaston's sneer would have been legendary if Killian cared.
He just shrugged. "Says a pirate sent to negotiate with a king on her behalf. Appearances can be deceiving, mate, so I wouldn't go burning bridges you might need later, were I in your shoes."
"I hardly need you."
"Actually, at the moment you do. Unless you have another way of convincing these fine gentlemen to let you in." Killian gestured at the guards, watching storm clouds wipe away Gaston's superior expression.
"The Queen promised me assistance with taking Avonlea, and I mean to have it." But his voice was less certain now.
"And why would she do a thing like that?" Killian hadn't even heard of Avonlea, which meant that the city (town? Duchy? County?) wasn't on the coast and couldn't be terribly important.
Gaston looked like he had a hard time thinking of an answer to that other than his own importance. Finally, he frowned and managed a decent response: "Belle the daughter of Sir Maurice."
"Belle? Who is this 'Belle', pray tell?" Killian was starting to wish he'd never wandered into this conversation; it was giving him a headache. He supposed the fact that talk had turned to a lady was a slight improvement, though. Anything would be, at this point.
"She went with the Dark One as his maid." A scowl. "She was supposed to marry me, and he stole her away! The Queen said she would be happy to help."
"Ah, so she's moving against Rumplestiltskin." A slow smile spread across Killian's face; now he was interested! Reaching out, he slapped Gaston on the shoulder. "You should have led with that, friend. Anyone who opposes the Dark One is more than welcome here. I'll take you to the Queen."
Belle had insisted on staying in Avonlea until things were settled, and she'd asked Rumplestiltskin to stay as well. He was both touched that she wanted him there and annoyed to be tied to a silly little castle in a useless duchy, but he managed not to say the latter. Courting Belle—even if he was officially doing no such thing—was turning out to be an interesting experience; Sir Maurice looked like he'd swallowed a lemon every time he saw them together, and his mother was unaccountably smug. Fiona spent entirely too much time in Avonlea, too, which did leave Rumplestiltskin more than a little suspicious. Particularly since Fiona seemed determined to interrupt the few moments in which Rumplestiltskin and Belle could sneak off alone.
"Mulan's back." Belle sighed the words a week and a half after the search for Gaston had started. "They lost his trail approaching Zelena's castle."
"Well, that's hardly a surprise. He is her type." Rumplestiltskin tried not to scowl too deeply, but it was bad. Gaston had proven surprisingly astute when leaving the castle; he'd taken most of his belongings with him and burned everything he couldn't carry. That left Rumplestiltskin with no way to do a locator spell and find the bastard who had been determined to marry and discard Belle.
Much to his surprise, Belle snickered. "All brawn and no brains?"
"She's consorting with a pirate of much the same level of intelligence." Now he did let himself sneer. "At least her mother sought power."
"You knew her mother?"
"Oh, yes." Rumplestiltskin felt his eyes narrowing at the memory. "Cora was also my student."
"Cora?" Belle bit her lip, clearly thinking hard. "Didn't she marry Prince Henry? I didn't think he was Zelena's father."
"You know your royal houses well." Rumplestiltskin giggled. "But no, Zelena's the daughter of some gardener or another. Cora tried to pass her off as King Leopold's, but that didn't work out so well for her."
Belle blanched. "The same King Leopold who Zelena married? That's disgusting."
"The family does have an interesting tree, doesn't it?"
"How can I be sure you're not making this up?" Belle peered up at him with an amused smile, scooting closer to him on the bench they shared. They'd managed to find a quiet spot in the garden that Rumplestiltskin thought his mother wasn't watching, and the peace was nice.
"Well, you could go ask your favorite outlaw about his friend the Lady Regina, who has the misfortune of being Zelena's half-sister. She knows the tale well enough."
"You mean Robin?" She brightened considerably, remembering the outlaw she'd saved from him. Personally, Rumplestiltskin thought letting the fool go had been worth it—Belle had hugged him, after all, and that day had changed everything about their relationship.
Rumplestiltskin shrugged as casually as he could. "Is that what his name was?"
"Rumple." Belle rolled her eyes. "You never forget a name."
"Well, no. I suppose I don't." He grinned, and she snorted fondly.
"Then tell me why you're watching him? You're not still holding a grudge, are you?"
"Of course not." He waved away the very notion. "It simply seems that my pet princess—Snow White—has fallen into his band of Merry Men, as has her paramour, or soon to be husband."
"You're still protecting her from Zelena?" He'd forgotten that Belle even knew about that, but she was clever, his Belle.
"A little." He was, of course, but Rumplestiltskin didn't like admitting that. Mainly because then he'd have to explain why, and Belle wasn't foolish enough to think he was sentimental or just trying to infuriate Zelena. The truth, of course, would lead to her learning about the Dark Curse, and she would not like that idea.
Not one bit.
Unease rolled around in his stomach; the thought of displacing thousands of people into a world where their happy endings were stripped away and where they were separated from their families no longer sat quite so comfortably as it once had. Rumplestiltskin supposed that was Belle's fault. His mother didn't care a whit for anyone outside her family, and the ever present voices in his mind only objected because it was a land without magic he aimed for. But Belle was so light, so good, and Rumplestiltskin hated admitting that he craved her approval.
I am drawn to her light as much as I am to her beauty and intelligence, he realized for the first time. The thought left him even queasier. Rumplestiltskin didn't like thinking of why that was the case, but he knew the truth. I was meant to be the Savior. I was meant to be like Belle—a hero for the light. His stomach did a backflip, leaving acid burning in his throat. Does that now mean I am drawn to what I should have been? Fate could be cut away, but it always left its mark.
That didn't matter. What mattered was finding his son.
Light and darkness be damned.
"So, how did you get that magic bean, anyway?"
Bae waited until Tiger Lily was out at the market to ask the question; he'd often wondered if Beans was so reluctant to tell that story because Tiger Lily was around. He didn't think that Beans disliked the former fairy, but he couldn't be sure that Beans just didn't want to tell an adult the truth. As near as he could tell, Beans was around his age, maybe a year or two younger. Things like that didn't really count in Neverland, but Bae supposed that he'd have to start keeping track of the years again.
It was kind of a nice feeling.
Beans just shrugged. "I've always had it."
"C'mon." Bae rolled his eyes. "You weren't born with it. You can't have been."
"Um. Not technically."
Bae crossed his arms. "That doesn't make a lot of sense. Look, if you don't want to tell me, just say so, and I'll shut up. But I know all the beans were supposed to be gone a long time ago."
Suddenly, Beans got that weirdly stubborn look on his face that Bae had come to know all too well. "How long ago?"
"Long time. Does it matter?" But Bae's heart was racing. He didn't like talking about his past, not on Neverland and definitely not here.
"See, now who doesn't want to say things?"
Bae could only glower and let Beans change the subject.
"We need to talk, Belle."
Her father's voice made Belle turn away from her conversation with Mulan about learning to fight for herself, and she checked a sigh. Belle had been ignoring Maurice's not-so-subtle hints for the last ten days, and she'd known this moment would come. So, she squared her shoulders and shot Mulan a small smile when the other woman gave her an encouraging nod.
"I know what you're going to say, Papa. You don't like Rumplestiltskin, and you don't like that I've fallen in love with him." She was also certain that her father didn't like Fiona, either, but that was a lot less relevant.
"My girl, are you sure that—"
"If you even hint that he's enchanted me, I'm walking away." Belle had listened to her father mutter about that one too many times already. "Magic doesn't work that way—you can't make someone love you. My choices are my own, and I choose Rumplestiltskin."
Maurice's face went white. "Belle, please. I know that you never wanted to marry Gaston, but you're carrying on as if you want to marry the Dark One!"
"And if I do?" Belle met his eyes brazenly. "It can't go worse than the marriage you wanted me to have. To a man who started the Ogre War, and then locked you away so he could steal our lands while planning to force me to marry him."
"But…he—he's the Dark One!"
"And beneath that he has a good heart." She couldn't stop herself from sighing this time. "He's cursed, Papa. Rumplestiltskin is human beneath the darkness." That didn't matter to her, but she suspected it might matter to her father.
Maurice blinked with confusion. "He is?"
"Yes." Stepping forward, Belle took her father's hands. "I love him, and he loves me. Please say we have your blessing." She smiled slightly. "Look at it on the bright side. You'll never have to worry about anyone hurting me. Not with Rumple around."
Her father looked like he didn't know what to make of that nickname, so he just swallowed noisily. "Sweetheart, are you sure this is what you want?"
"Surer than I have ever been about anything."
"Then…then I suppose I have to accept that." An uneasy laugh. "You always have been stubborn like your mother, after all."
It wasn't a blessing, but at least her father was trying. And they had time. Time for Maurice to get to know Rumplestiltskin, and time for—hopefully—Fiona to stop enjoying making Maurice cringe every chance she got. Rumple was on his best behavior, much to Belle's delight, but his mother was another problem entirely.
She's enjoying this, and yet she keeps interrupting us. The two don't fit together, so why is she doing that?
Belle really could only tackle one troublesome parent at a time.
"I think the rumors are right." Charming sighed heavily, and Snow put her hand on his arm. "King George is getting new soldiers from somewhere. Queen Zelena must have joined in on his side."
"Her generals are a miserable bunch, though." Much to her surprise, it was Graham who spoke up. The Huntsman was generally a man of few words, but right now he looked determined. "She has many of their hearts, too, which means they don't exactly exhibit a lot of initiative."
"Can we exploit that?" Asking that made Snow feel a little guilty; Zelena was abusing the people she was supposed to be leading. Those should have been her generals, and they deserved better than for the Wicked Queen to hold their hearts.
"I can't see why not." Robin exchanged a look with Graham. "We stole one heart. We can take others and hope they'll defect."
"I'm not controlling anyone, even if they won't." Snow wasn't going to budge from that stance, either. Some things were just wrong.
Robin shrugged. "It'll keep her from using them, even if we don't."
"I doubt any of them are feeling very loyal after she took their hearts, anyway," Regina pointed out, giving Snow a reassuring smile. "And if they forget what she did to them, we can help them remember."
"Right." Snow nodded briskly. "The other question is what we do against King George's new general, this 'Leviathan'."
"My father says he knows him." Regina chuckled when Snow turned to her in surprise. "He says his name is actually Lancelot, and they met at my grandfather's court years ago. Papa's offered to meet with him if you think it'll help."
"Of course it will!" Snow beamed. "Thank him for us, please."
"I'll tag along if you don't mind." Charming met her eyes briefly, and Snow nodded right away. She knew that David wasn't George's actual son, or even the prince he'd raised, but everyone else thought that David was James. In a royal world, him being George's son and heir made a big difference, and they needed to use every tool at their disposal.
Still, Snow wished that George hadn't allied with Zelena, or that he hadn't tried to kill Charming in the first place. King George wasn't a horrible king, and she would have had no problem with him if he wasn't dead set on helping her wicked stepmother and murdering the man she loved. Zelena had to be stopped, though, and if that meant they had to take down King George first, that was what they would do.
Snagging a hair from each of them was easy. The lovebirds were ridiculously distracted when they were anywhere near one another, and had Fiona not been so happy for her son, she would have scoffed. But she'd been young and in love once, and although she'd grown to despise she'd once been convinced had been her True Love, Fiona rejoiced to know that her son had found his own. Rumplestiltskin had suffered so much, and the depth of his ability to love still could leave Fiona reeling. Despite the darkness inside him, her son was good, and she was so very glad that Belle shared his feelings.
But she had to know.
Acquiring one of Rumplestiltskin's hairs had been child's play. She did live with him, after all, and she'd long since formed a collection of his hairs. They made excellent tracking potions, and one never did know what the idiot Dark Ones would talk her son into doing next. Now she had free rein of Belle's childhood home, getting one of hers was easy, too. The potion, unfortunately, proved to be much harder to brew than she had expected. Rumplestiltskin had made it look so simple! He'd put the princess' and the shepherd's hair together, swirled a touch of magic together, and then viola! magic. Fiona, however, was having no such luck.
She was glad that she'd stolen more than one hair from each. Given the smoking mess her first two attempts had created, she was going to need hairs by the handful.
"Well, if you're going to be stubborn, so can I," she told the too-hot-to-touch vial. "I'm going to prove it to those two fools before they kiss, and that's just that."
The alternative was not worth thinking on.
She'd made him wait, of course. Zelena was the queen, and Gaston was just an ambitious little knight. She'd hoped he might prove his mettle by taking away Rumple's annoying maid's home, but he hadn't managed to do that, either. He'd been driven out by two girls and some old men! The very idea was laughable, so Zelena left Gaston cooling his heels while she decided what to do with him. Obviously, she'd put him back in control of Avonlea—the idea of taking the little duchy off of Rumple's maid was still too delicious to give up—but if he was going to make her work for it, Zelena was going to up the price.
Several other things came up, so she made Gaston wait almost the entire day before bothering to see him. She was sure that Hook was keeping an eye on him; although the pirate had avoided her bed thus far, he'd proven useful in enough ways that Zelena wasn't annoyed. Speaking of bed warmers, she'd definitely decided against using Gaston in that role, which meant she'd need to see Tinker Bell again. Maybe the ex-fairy was right and she just needed a little help finding someone. Zelena wasn't exactly going to depend upon pixie dust to find her 'soulmate' (assuming such things even existed), but she didn't mind something that would point her in the right direction.
Yet that was hardly the point right now, was it? Right now, she had an idiot knight on her hands, and Zelena was thoroughly sick of dealing with fools.
"I think your little 'reign' in Avonlea might go down in history the shortest in the history!" She didn't bother with greeting him, and was glad to see Gaston leap to his feet as she stormed in. "How hard is it to fight off two little girls and a ragged bunch of retired soldiers?"
"They caught us by—"
"With your pants down, yes. I noticed." Zelena rolled her eyes. "And now you're here to ask me for help in fixing your mistakes. How utterly revolting."
"You can't blame me when Belle was able to call on Rumplestiltskin for help. You didn't warn me that could happen!" Gaston's glare was so mulish that Zelena was tempted to turn him into one, but her curiosity stopped her.
"Rumplestiltskin came to oust you?" Zelena cocked her head, narrowing her eyes to stare at Gaston.
He flinched. "Well, not exactly…"
"Then do tell me what exactly happened." Turning him into a mule was starting to sound extremely attractive. Certainly more attractive than he is, she thought irritably. That chiseled jaw and those muscled arms will only get him so far. Zelena barely managed not to scream in frustration. Her plan to make Rumple's little maid miserable had been intended as a minor distraction, not a project she should have to pay attention to!
"He's there now." Gaston's chin jutted out in weak defiance. "The Dark One."
"And you just ran away." Rolling her eyes, Zelena strode forward to glare at Gaston. "How courageous!"
"You promised your magic to help with that beast!"
She sniffed irritably. "And you promised that you could hold Avonlea against anyone else." Still, Zelena sighed—she could salvage something out of this mess, even if the quality of Gaston's brain had turned out to be inversely proportional to the quantity of his muscles. "Still, I do always keep my promises, which means that I will assist you. But that means I own you, Gaston. You're my creature now, whether you like it or not."
Gaston had the sense to flinch, but really, what good was that going to do him? Zelena was determined to get her money's worth out of the fool, even that meant feeding him to Rumplestiltskin to keep her teacher sated when he realized she was behind Gaston's shenanigans. It's not like he cared when I took over Leopold's kingdom, even though he does keep helping Snow, she tried to tell herself. He doesn't care about politics or political power. Avonlea doesn't matter to him.
But she'd seen the way he looked at that stupid maid of his, and Zelena knew this wasn't going to be simple.
"My mother died here," Belle whispered as she led Rumplestiltskin into her childhood home's library. "She saved me from ogres, but I can't remember anything else about it."
Much to her surprise, scaly fingers squeezed her own gently. Rumplestiltskin's voice sounded thick. "Any parent who would not die for their child is no parent at all."
"I know. I know she loved me." Belle closed her eyes for a moment, remembering Colette's scent, her warm embrace. "And I try to be worthy of her every day."
"I'm sure she'd be proud of you, sweetheart. I can't imagine any parent not being proud of a daughter like you."
Swinging to look at him and seeing the compassion in his eyes made Belle's heart clench. "Do you think so?" She hated sounding so uncertain, even with him, and she still didn't know why she'd wanted to show him this library where she'd first learned to love books. "I try, but—"
"You've saved your people, Belle. Twice." His smile was soft, and the hand that reached up to touch her cheek was gentle. "You are a hero. You may not wield a sword or a bow, but not all heroes do. You are the bravest person I've ever known. And…and you find goodness in others. When it's not there, you create it. I've never met anyone else who can do what you can do."
"Oh, Rumple." Belle didn't know what else to do, so she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. Maybe he was right. Maybe her mother would be proud of her. Not all heroes wield a sword or bow. She liked the sound of that; Belle had always wanted to make a difference, but since her mother's death, she'd been driven to do so. But Rumple understood. Of all the unlikely people in the world to understand her, Rumplestiltskin did. "I love you."
She could feel him blushing. "And I love you."
Just as Belle shifted to kiss him, Fiona burst through the door.
Again?
A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who has left me reviews! To answer a few questions that have come up, Fiona does have a reason for stopping Belle and Rumplestiltskin from kissing, and it'll come to light in the next few chapters.
Stay tuned for Chapter 26—"Never Out of Sight", in which Zelena starts contingency planning, Rumplestiltskin confronts his mother, an accident brings out uncomfortable truths about Beans, Fiona asks for Tink's help, and Belle and Rumplestiltskin talk about the future.
