I do not own any part of Once Upon a Time

Chapter 1 The Curse

There was a spring in his step that day. No, scratch that, his leg still hurt to the blue blazes, the brace doing little to mitigate the pain only allowing him the use of both of his hands. However, today was the day the new art exhibit opened, showing farming in still life. He had seen the exhibit, of course, he had hung about every picture in there. There was another reason he was excited that the new exhibit had opened, for it meant that she would come at some point during the upcoming three months that the exhibit would be there. Of course, she normally came in the first couple of weeks it was at the building, so as he got out of his car and walked the ramp that led to the employees side door, he hoped, very much hoped that perhaps she might visit that day.

There wasn't much that needed to be done. His job was essentially finished as far as the exhibit went, he now looked over his notes and got them ready to send to the original holder of the exhibit, so that way the next place the crates of art were sent to, would know the condition of each piece. That was his job-he hung the art, could look at a wall and tell a person exactly where to hang it in a matter of seconds, and could figure out which pictures needed to be hung where to catch people's eyes as they entered from the doors, or if they were coming to see one of the local artist's exhibitions in the upper level halls, what would catch their eye as they came up from the early 20th century elevator.

Robby loved beautiful things-had a good eye for it too. That was what was so devastating when he lost his little shop where he had restored antiques and then sold them via email or facebook. He had been looking and valuing works of art for over fifteen years, and when he wanted to pick himself back up and try to scrape together the burnt pieces of his life, the job of local art curator had a nice ring to it.

There were also downsides to the job. Where he enjoyed the ability to arrange exhibits to please the eye, he downright loathed the grubby hands of school children who came with their school group, or the ones who held the hands of their art enthused parents during the weekend. Really it didn't matter who came-as long he didn't have to give them a tour, as long as he didn't have to try to talk to them.

Fortunately for him, or unfortunately-he couldn't decide how he felt from day to day, sometimes hour to hour-there was a kid who could do enough speaking for the entire eight employees who worked there at any given time, and loved to give tours, especially to grubby handed children. The boy had tight blond curls that he arranged in what he smugly announced was a man bun-a manly man bun, had Robby not seen his mustache? If he could grow that, surely that would make him the epitome of attractive manhood! Speaking of manly manhood…

'What is that?' Robby glanced over Jeff's outfit, if it could even be called that, with scorn.

'It's my lucky Space Jam T-shirt! I told you about it, remember? I'm wearing it today because this past weekend was the worst! So I need a bit of luck in my life. Dog pooped all over my living room when I went out shopping-musta freaked out over something, the girl that gave me her number last week totally ghosted me, and…'

Robby put his hands up, in hopes of silencing the word vomit.

'Don't you have a tour to do today?' This was what he really wanted to know-he wanted to know why the man had to be so infuriatingly unprofessional, but the blabbering millennial had imagined he cared to know the history behind his clothing choices.

'Of course I do! Why do you think I wore this flannel shirt on top?' He showed off the offending garment-the navy and orange checked shirt competed in the battle of ugly with the loud Looney Tunes T-Shirt he wore underneath-that along with his loose fitting jeans and ratty converse shoes together screamed to Robby that he still imagined himself a teenager. Most of the stupid kids his age did. Grasping to childhood, and disparaging maturity that came with being nearly thirty, little did they know that they were despised by the 'boomers' (he had let Jeff know more than once that he was NOT, in fact, a boomer, and resided in just the generation behind him), and the younger generation alike.

Robby groaned and gave Jeff a speech about dressing professionally in the workplace while Jeff merely rolled his eyes when he was done.

'Well Gramps, since you are so impeccably dressed, yourself with your fancy smancy black suit and black tie, with I don't know-are those cufflinks? You can give the tour for me today instead?'

Robby narrowed his eyes at the man child. Jeff knew very well what his weakness was and his light gray eyes danced and smirked at him. Knowing he had won, though Robby gave no reply, he laughed and then headed to the front lobby, to unlock the doors for the day.

Robby went to the exhibit room and unlocked the doors to it. It was the only area in the building that could ensure the right temperature and conditions to store the precious collections that made their way to their small city. It was the one thing that Robby found pride in, that and his one nice suit that he had bought with his first paycheck, along with four shirts and four ties that he put in constant rotation, praying he never got anything on them-he wanted the art to speak for itself, not for people to be distracted by the clothes he was wearing. He took pride in his clothes, and in the collections he acquired. They weren't his, not really, but even Regina praised his ability to persuade prestigious art museums to part with their collections for a couple of months. She didn't fully know his weakness though. It was the one good thing he could say about Jeff, the boy did know how to keep a secret. He could speak rather well via email, but he refused to talk over the phone and certainly not in person, not until he had gotten to know them for a long time…

It was just one of the reasons he hadn't been able to approach her yet.

Belle French.

He didn't think she even reached five feet, so she had to be the one woman in the world to make him look tall. She loved Habitat Tea Company, a local tea and coffee place-he had seen her dispose of her cup on multiple occasions when entering the building, she liked classic literature, and worked at the public library. She had deep blue eyes that rivaled sapphires, and a smile no artist could capture, if they worked on it for a hundred years-it was kind, she always smiled in that way to anyone who walked by her, and she had a mass of dark curly hair that she loved to pin up in a half updo.

She was gorgeous, loved art, and he was half in love with her. There was just one small problem.

She had no idea he even existed.

The first time she came, she had a backpack slung over her shoulders, a notebook in her hands and a pencil placed adorably in her hair, ready to be pulled out when she was in contemplative thought over one particular piece or another. She jotted down notes, looked closely at certain pieces, and read each description before moving on to the next piece. It took her two hours to finish the exhibit, where it took the casual peruser only about thirty-it might have stretched to an hour if Jeff was giving a tour and the onlooker was especially pretty.

He had just peaked in the room to see if he could turn off the lights and start the process of closing. It was fifteen minutes 'till closing, and his leg had been in more pain than usual from the rain that he knew was coming within the next twelve hours or so. The sight of her staring up close to one of his favorite pieces almost made him forget he had trouble speaking to strangers, until she turned around at the sound of him entering and focused those sapphire eyes on him. His heart thumped loudly-if she said anything he wouldn't have been able to hear it with his ears suddenly overwhelming him with a pounding torrent. She was so beautiful, and he, well, he couldn't be there.

He turned around faster than Jeff could clock out at the end of the day and went hurriedly to fetch said man. It shouldn't surprise him that he was flirting with Mary Blanchard, the director of the children's classes that met on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He cleared his throat, causing the man bunned child to roll his eyes and excuse himself with Mary.

'What is it, Gramps? You look like you've seen a ghost.'

Mary was still too close and Robby didn't know her as well as he knew Jeff. Mary and some of the other part time employees or volunteers always just thought Robby was conceited. If only they knew…

'I-um-I.' He sputtered a little before making himself stand a little taller and leaning just a bit closer said quietly. 'There's a-um-a guest in the Exhibit room and I needed to close up, and…'

'And you bolted when you saw them? Alright, Alright, I'll let them know.' Then turning to the girl still grasping children's paintings with paint smudged on her cheek, 'I'll see you Thursday, Mary!' and he winked at her! Mary reddened a little, but also rolled her eyes at him-Robby thought this was all confusing, but didn't want to stick around and ask her about it, so he took the old elevator with Jeff and hoped the girl wasn't in the lobby quite yet. She wasn't, and Jeff went to do what he did best in the building-speak.

'Yeah, excuse me, Miss?' Robby could hear him say-everyone could hear him say it, Jeff had a voice that could carry, and with the high ceilings and old architecture, the sounds always seemed to expand tenfold wherever you might find yourself in the building.

'Oh, hi! Um, just so you know, we close in about ten minutes or less-oh yeah, no problem. Do you like this piece, you know I give tours here, would you like me to tell you about this one?'

Robby groaned. Of course Jeff was going to flirt with her. The girl's voice did not carry as well and he only got a glance of her when she left the lobby, he still hid in the shadows so he could see her without having to speak to her.

Jeff emerged a second or two later.

'So Gramps, you didn't tell me the person you bolted on was completely freaking gorgeous!'

Thankfully Jeff didn't seem to need any sort of additional conversation or reply and shook his head and went off to turn off lights on the higher floors and let Robby close down the lower areas. Jeff was many, very annoying things, but he did have a soft spot for Robby's leg (which unfortunately, among other things, had given him the nickname Gramps early on).

He had gone home that evening, put his keys in the lonely little bowl, in his half empty, tiny, lonely apartment, and after he had microwaved his dinner, sit in his one lonely chair and took off with a groan the brace that kept both his hands free at work, but he was sure it made him hurt later that much more. He glanced over at the cane he had set beside his chair for when he would either go to the bathroom or when he was going to go to bed. No doubt if Jeff saw the contraption that kept him from falling when he walked without a brace would cause no shortage of laughter and mocking and cement his role as 'Gramps'.

That particular day, and that particular evening had been two years and four major exhibits ago. He had ascertained the beautiful woman's name from the log book that guests would sign when they came in. He knew she loved classics because he had caught her sitting and reading on the decorative bench they had positioned to add some seating and it looked natural among the other turn of the century articles of furniture that completed the room, even when it was empty of art. She had never seen him, and he had darted back around and ran into Jeff outside the room.

'Watch it, Gramps! What were you looking at in there that spooked you so bad.'

Before he could say anything, Jeff glanced in for a moment and looked at him with so much smug laughter that Robby reddened in spite of himself.

'Why Gramps, it's the little beauty back again. Gotta crush on her do you?'

'I have no such thing, you know I just don't like-'

'Yeah I know-only you never had that much trouble talking to me. Am I that ugly?'

'You would win no beauty contest, that's for sure, but that has nothing to do with…' Robby shrugged his shoulders a little and made some sort of hand motion in the air. 'It-well, I don't do well in a group, or where it's imperative that I contribute to the conversation. You kind of just spoke the first couple of weeks to me without noticing I wasn't even speaking very much.' He smirked, and Jeff looked almost ashamed, before his eyes went back to their normal laughing selves. 'By that time I was used to you and could converse.' He shrugged his shoulders again to try to make what he felt was cursed with, seem inconsequential.

Jeff turned back towards the room where the little beauty was stationed. 'She is pretty. If you won't go talk to her, maybe I will- I'll at least find out what her name is, show you how it's done.' He raised his eyebrows mischievously.

'No need, her name is Belle.' The words were out of his mouth before he thought of them, now that he remembered, he knew he didn't want Jeff to go back in there and flirt with her again. That was what he was thinking. Jeff's gaping mouth told him this was worse.

'You know her name? I thought you said you couldn't speak to her?'

He wanted to look non concerned, but he knew his face betrayed him as he grasped for an answer.

'I didn't-I-I was curious-and I looked at the guest sign-in sheet.'

'Why Gramps, you do have a crush on her, and now you're stalking her!'

Robby glared at Jeff, and simultaneously felt his words might be true, especially since he had actually googled the woman which is where he found out she had taken up a job at the library. He did need to get a library card one of these days…he just didn't want to have to really speak to anyone.

'Well,' Jeff continued. 'I am going to go talk to her, if you won't-don't worry, don't worry,' He added when he saw Robby's face-he had no idea what it looked like. He wasn't dealing well with anything right at that moment. 'I won't ask her out or anything, but I do need to be friendly-that's kind of my job around here, you know. She might want to hear about the pieces we have here today.'

He shrugged for the last time, this out of resignation. Robby didn't have a crush on her-he didn't even know her! He just didn't like the thought that Jeff could walk in a room with a beautiful stranger and have no issues exchanging pleasantries.

He hated himself that day, and he hated himself this day-present day-two years after the very first time Belle French had come with her backpack, and her notebook, and her pencil tucked behind her ear. He hated how much he was looking forward to seeing her, whenever she decided to come, because he knew that he would do exactly what he always did. Lurk in the shadows until she left and then have Jeff hint and wink at him about it and tell him what a sweet girl she was, and how he ought to get to know her because though she was kind of odd for sitting and reading classics while she was visiting an art exhibit, she was really sweet.

'Do you think Little Beauty will be here today?' Jeff spoke through his self hating thoughts.

'I don't know, neither do I care, Jeff.' He tried to make his words sound like his words were true, he knew they really just came out sounding pitiful.

Jeff snorted. 'Keep telling yourself that, Gramps!' and he walked off to set things up, upstairs.

Robby went to open the accordion like bars that went over the building when it was closed, and there, standing in front of him with her eyes down at her book, was the person he was very much hoping would be there that day. She never came this early, so he had never expected….in fact, no one normally was lined up at the door waiting for the 10am opening on a Tuesday morning to see whatever new exhibit was happening-unless it was some sort of school group and if that was happening, it would have been Jeff doing this, and he would have gladly climbed every stair multiple times to keep from seeing them.

To both his horror and delight she darted up from her book and then flashed him the brightest smile he had ever seen. Her eyes pierced him with their blueness and her smile had him trying his best just to breath.

'I was hoping I would see you today!' She said, and Robby did his best not to throw up.

Author's Note: I had this idea a few weeks ago when we visited a behind the scenes look at our local art and humanities building. The guy who showed us around looked and dressed exactly like Jeff does here (Which is why he doesn't look like cannon Jefferson, sorry about that), and I was suddenly struck with the idea of how to Rumbelle the situation, lol Hope you enjoy! I may have one more chapter out in the next few days, but it may be a week or so before I can start my frequent updates that I do. I was just itching to share this idea and see what people thought.

Also-my sister deals with the sort of thing Robby deals with here. It's not at the same level, but she's had a really supporting family who helped her deal with it.
One more thing-I tagged Woobie Rumple (in AO3), because there are definitely some woobie elements to this just given his situation, however, it's not to the same degree my story, The Claim Shanty was. I hope it's still enjoyable though!