Chapter 2
Advice
He can't get Regina's words out of his head, even waking up next to Belle (who had impressively made the argument that they were both adults and it was a large bed, and did this thing with her expressive eyes that made him kowtow to her) he questions if she's safe and whole and thriving.
Belle's so close and he could just quietly move the covers, maybe bust out a little magic trick, look under his shirt that she wears and know for himself. See her perfectly smooth skin or her terribly scarred flesh.
He rolls his eyes. That's not going to happen. He stares at the ceiling and he thinks Regina had several hopes in mind when she did it and beyond the obvious cruelty and wickedness lay an assurance that she, just like he, plays with confirmations.
Confirmations of reality or confirmations that she's aware he holds onto an anguish she imprinted in his mind years ago is the question.
There's not a great deal someone like he can say against the fact that Regina is working an angle, but there's no reason to let her get away with it, either.
He responds in kind.
Rumplestiltskin clasps a necklace around Belle's throat and runs his fingers over the locket dangling at the end. He tells her how she makes it shine and does it a great service though a more accurate statement would be, 'thank you for your help, m'dear.'
The locket is 10 karat gold, tarnished and dull with age but, despite appearances to the contrary, the hinges are not rusted.
It is not meant to be opened, not yet, and Belle looks disappointed when he shrugs off her request to fix it.
He says, "Later."
Later never comes, as it was never intended to.
Regina is twenty three and around her neck is a 24 karat gold locket, bejeweled with rich and pricey stones like ruby and diamond. It's gorgeous and stunning; an elegant imitation of its original, designed a hundred years ago by a poor excuse of a blacksmith who'd never handled an authentic gem in his life.
Rumplestiltskin watches it shine and glitter with false sentimentality and when he looks up to catch Regina's eye her expression is flat and perturbed. It takes him a minute to realize she thinks he's ogling her.
Rumplestiltskin laughs, "You've a very lovely locket on today, dearie," though her breasts do continue to be above par, "Very lovely, indeed. Wherever did you buy it?"
"I didn't," she says, fingering the small gaudy bauble with all the romanticism Regina possesses for that which she holds dear, "It's a family heirloom."
Rumplestiltskin smiles.
It's a lie. A maternal lie at that; he never would have believed Cora had it in her.
...There was doubtless a secondary reason.
He leans in closer to inspect it and Regina looks up, uncomfortable, "It doesn't look very old," he informs her.
"It was my grandmother's."
"Was it?"
Yes, well, the original was, stashed away and collecting dust like all his other memorabilia of Deals Gone By. It is little more than a finger snap away from its rightful mistress.
Bartered to him thirty years ago by a girl, lower than a commoner, lower than a peasant, locked away in a tower and frightened that she would be dead in the morning.
Cora Mills.
The Miller's daughter.
Told that if she didn't spin and spin and spin and turn a room stacked full of straw into gold, her life was forfeit.
Straw into gold.
Cora's heirloom; the reason Regina is alive, the reason she sits on a throne.
Regina's fingers clench around the locket and he backs away. Her eyes are cold and protective and warning him to mind his own business.
He holds his hands up in surrender, "But what would I know of your family's rich history."
Regina's eyes narrow, he smiles, she says, "Quite."
It's a mere three hours later and they find themselves together in the sitting room.
Regina actually, literally, hilariously points her pen at Belle and moves it up and down, indicating the whole of her. "Now that's curious." She says.
He could not possibly have orchestrated a better script.
Belle frowns and Regina's look is perfectly incredulous and shrewd, "But it is a stylish..."
Necklace, Rumplestiltskin finishes in his head, waiting for her to catch on.
But Regina doesn't say 'necklace' she says, "Cardigan," in a sickly sweet voice.
Regina's laughter is a breathy suspicious sound, "Rumplestiltskin, I never knew you could be so... Well, shall-" her words end there.
Cut off.
She frowns.
His turn for the incredulous amusement.
The seconds tick by, one two three fourfivesixseveneight but no one is moving.
The locket disappears from around Belle's neck but, sadly, Regina is the anti-thesis of how he pictured her; how he wanted her to react.
She's calm, composed as she turns to him, invades his space without magic or hissing. She looks wholly levelheaded.
Regina slaps him.
He's so shocked that, for a moment, he's not sure how to respond.
Regina Mills. The Evil Queen. Untold power and formidable wit, lowering herself to fisticuffs.
She holds up her hand, clenched so tight into a fist it's turned white, and dangling from it all he can see is the copper chain. She says, whisper low, speaking through a straining throat, "You son of a bitch."
His cheek stings where the angry red imprint of her hand is.
The longer they square off the paler she becomes and he opens his mouth to inform her that she's lucky he's even implying he'll return it to her when she slaps him again, turns on her heel and vanishes out the door.
Regina, the woman always game for a tantrum, leaving quietly.
Regina's not a child anymore. She grew up to hate her mother and loathe her past and the last return he expected from her was one that was genuine.
Belle looks at him in frustration, which only nags at him further. He'd already come up with a response and amends for Belle's anger, but instead there is only a disappointed scorn.
He gives Belle a cocky grin and innocent shrug and feels like he's back in the Enchanted Forest with a twenty-something Regina betrayed he'd crossed the invisible line they always had between them.
TV, stereo, DVD, computers and Belle's so interested in his 'pathetically small' literary collection.
She'd never make it in the 21st century.
He wonders what she'd think of books on tape.
Sacrilegious.
What an interesting oversight, failing to overcompensate with a book collection.
Belle doesn't ask about the necklace. The only thing of importance is the end result and her never ending disappointment in the pair of them. She sits quietly on the floor, her long skirt pooling around her like a picnic blanket to rest her chosen books upon.
Even Belle's clothes are more conducive to organization than Regina's best efforts.
There are dozens of comfortable places to sit, with a minimum effort of relocating research, but she's chosen the floor.
Ridiculous.
"What are doing?"
"Protecting you."
If she backs up those words with chain male and swords he will forgive, always forgive, the inevitable future 'can't we all just get along's.
"From the Wicked Witch, I presume?"
It's a hard title to argue against. Both descriptions are, after all, hard fact.
Belle gives it a shot, "Or Saint Mills, if we compare."
Tch. "Then we won't."
"Ah." She smiles brightly, "What would I do with a saint, anyways?"
He doesn't say 'live happily ever after,' but only because he doesn't want to be predictable.
He doesn't say anything at all because he can see only two reasons she'd make the comment:
Appeasing his possible, probable, insecurities on the matter (for shouldn't she have a Prince Charming of her own and not be part of villains' sandwich?) or fearing their catty disrespect is rubbing off on her.
Belle says, "Can I ask a favor from you?"
"Yes. You might have better luck asking for a deal, however."
"Do I have anything to make a deal with?"
"No," he says, "Not especially. What would you ask for?"
"Your specialty: the impossible."
He sits up, intrigued.
"Go and make amends."
He slouches down, uninterested.
"At last!" Belle says, "Something that hasn't changed."
Rumplestiltskin says, "I promise you, I've made many deals that have been distasteful, dearie."
"Well, at this rate you're going to kill each other and then where will I be?"
He scoffs, but even as he opens his mouth to inform her he could quite easily take down Regina, long before any killing blows, he realizes that's the sort of theme deemed 'asking for it' and 'sleeping on the couch.'
Instead he goes with, "New evil sorcerers would take our places. You're quite fond of those. No, don't deny it, dearie."
She doesn't, shaking her head at his teasing.
It's tricky to pin down just what Regina is to Belle; captor, acquaintance friend or... There will be unhappiness when she dies.
He worries on the duration.
"You're not 'evil.' Don't say that."
Rumplestiltskin says, "You get all," he gestures in a discombobulated sort of way, "cranky when I say 'monster.'"
Belle's eyes light with a mischief that almost, but not quite, suits her, "Your computer has a feature on it you might like, then. 'Thesaurus'? It offers suggestions for words that are similar but not so offensive."
It's hard to choose which should amused him most; having a thesaurus explained to him or being asked to find new words for her to disapprove of.
"The Queen," he says, with absolute certainty, "does not deserve you."
"Funny. She says the same thing about you."
Yes, yes, he set himself up for that one.
Then she backtracks. Again. "Hey now, how many girls would love to have Rumplestiltskin fulfilling their every whim?"
More soothing corrections of mocking comments. It doesn't matter to her if they sting a nerve or hit a mark. She changes her story when she recalls that she should care.
It's unnecessary and he will have to comment on this misplaced wish-there-was-guilt. He hates a self-imposed burden being placed on her shoulders for his sake.
Belle smiles when he doesn't reply, "Tell you what, hmm? I'll give you my first born."
Belle and Bae and baby makes three.
The Happily Ever After people strive for.
Still, he's sure he can get her first (second and third) born at a discounted price. Belle comes from a place, a time, where women are raised to provide such things without complaint.
So very many things to say that will result in a minimum twenty-four hours of glares and silence and, oh yes, groveling for forgiveness.
"You will have better luck appealing to her Majesty." And he does believe this. Regina is far more eager to display her need for acceptance and appreciation than he ever will be.
Belle's raised eyebrow informs him that she's exhausted this stratagem already and his intrigue is piqued once more.
"Ooh," he says, leaning forward, "Tell me."
Belle stands then and goes to his chair. She leans in close, uncomfortably close, and why are all these women stealing his tricks?
She, like Regina, adds her own bit of self to soothe the plagiarism: she smells like Belle, feels like Belle and sounds like Belle.
It's an excellent deviation from the classic.
Belle leans down and he carefully doesn't back away when her hands grip the sofa behind him, pinning him in place with her hands above his shoulders.
She has a sneaky and predatory look that, on Regina, would be brilliantly tantalizing and enticing in its dominating fashion. Regina is built for this, this vicious seduction. Belle is not. It is out of place and it unnerves him to see it draped and coiled around her.
Had she been drinking this lack of inhibition would be delightfully endearing, and he'd be oh so eager to accept the actions of a Belle without modesty or manners or cares. Free of propriety, at ease with his discomfort, direct and dominating...
That's all well and good and fun and free, but it is not Belle. She would never do this, never look like this, if she was whole with her emotions and logic and heart.
She wouldn't.
He tries to focus on the here and now. This nervousness does not become him.
Belle's looking at him with uncertainty skipping across her features; trying to be vanquished and hoping it needn't be.
He hates to make her self-conscious or embarrassed and so he places his hands on her hips and tilts his head back to stare up at her with submissively innocent eyes.
She says, "It's a secret." Her tone steady now that he's playing her uncomfortably provocative game.
"Tell me?"
"It's my secret." Regina has poisoned her. That's a fact, a glaring and deep rooted fact.
It makes it tricky because he's not sure he should look beyond Regina's influences and manipulations or accept them as a part of who Belle is now, of what she's grown to be.
There isn't going to be a radical different to her when her heart is back in her possession. But it is overwhelming to him to see her pretending that she's okay with this moment, to see her pretending she loves him when their eyes are so close and their noses are touching.
She's so very, very empty inside.
And then she's crawling into his lap, her knees on either side of him and it's too much. She's hit his breaking point.
He grabs her about the waist and twists her around. She bounces when he tosses her on the sofa and her eyes are bright when she realizes he's switched their positions.
This works. This makes sense. He's the insolent troublesome one who delights in menacing.
Pinning Belle down, with her eyes electrified and laughing, doesn't remind him of everything he stands to lose if Regina becomes disappointed in him.
"Ah," he says, "Now you must tell me."
"And I will if you-"
He interrupts, "There are easier ways to extract secrets, dearie."
"Don't I know it."
'He locked her in a tower and sent in clerics to cleanse her soul...'
It's Regina twisting her talons in him and getting into his head.
He anticipates, at all times, for Regina to be a reckless bitch and it's clearly a throwaway and flighty comment with Belle's intonation. A flirty nothingness.
He has got to stop letting Regina manipulate him.
Belle misinterprets his silent tension, "I won't..." he realizes, now, that her eyes are scanning his face, flicking back and forth from his eyes to his lips and of all the times for this to come up again.
"I won't kiss you," she promises, "I'll always wait for you," like he's a blushing virgin, nervous about their first time.
Years and years of fantasy feels like he's already taken things excruciatingly slow.
He nods, says something that might be 'thanks' or might be a miserable sound of cynicism, and pushes himself away from her.
"But you really ought to make amends. Just apologize. An apology from you," she makes an all-encompassing gesture that somehow feels insulting, "will go further than you think, Rumple."
Oh, thank god. An easy out.
He glances sharply at her and Belle says, "...stiltskin."
Of all the people to complain about taking liberties with a name... It only matters in so much as the only living person who uses the nickname does so as a derisive insult and that just so happens to be the woman Belle's learned it from.
He waves it off and waves her comment off while he's at it, "I'll think about it." Belle scoffs and he promises, "I will."
Regina's in the shower when her phone rings.
Caller ID informs him it's Emma Swan.
He can think of a few reasons she might call; checking on Regina's wellbeing (for she is the Savior, a white hat and sheriff) or offering to get drinks with dear old granny and talk of times she's missed (for Emma's always had a venomous streak inside her) but one stands out, clear and most likely:
Henry.
He wonders if Henry will still call out for the woman who ran to his side for ten years every time he hurt or cried or needed absolutely anything at all.
Probably.
Old habits die hard.
He wonders if it will break Emma's heart when he comes down with a cold or has a nightmare and instinct tells him Regina will soothe him.
Clever and brave as Henry is, he's still a child.
Malicious and calculating as Regina is, she's also a mother.
She's always been a mother, point in fact, and she's always understood the importance of the role.
Rumplestiltskin knows, before Regina's unhappy marriage became too much for her to endure, before she crashed down a kingdom and became obsessed, that she did try. Try, because Snow White idolized her. She loved her above all other women and saw nothing but perfection when she looked into Regina's eyes.
For all that she tried not to care, there's a reason Regina's fanatical vengeance didn't emerge until Snow was in her twenties.
Snow White is thirteen when she's bedridden for a week and her fever's escalating. Word on the vine is she won't last a fortnight.
Regina's standing in his entryway wearing a purple thing that looks unimpressed with the fact women need to breathe and appears thirty pounds in weight.
Must be how royalty stays fit.
"Come for a cure, then? It'll cost you."
He waits for her scorn. Her anger. Her desperation.
Her only child is on the brink of death and Regina says, "Don't be tiresome."
Hmm, "You're a monster, aren't you, dearie?"
"And you're a man."
Role reversal.
Trading places and Regina looks so very disappointed. She doesn't like that he has morals lurking beneath his scales. "Don't go soft on me now."
He says, "That's not how it works."
She waves her hand dismissively, "I'm not in the mood."
Rumplestiltskin puts his hand over his heart like she could not possibly have insulted him more, "Aren't we cranky today." But he still waves her irritable self inside, "Come in, come in. You'll catch your death standing there."
She sweeps into his house and he sees she's come alone. So. She's mastered teleportation.
He looks her over and what he sees amuses him; she's uptight because she's exhausted and she's exhausted because she's troubled and she's troubled because...
He smirks. She's going to ask for the cure.
Faux sociopaths are the worst
Rumplestiltskin wonders what it feels like to feign indifference for your own child's welfare but Regina doesn't look like her skin is crawling and that would've been his first guess.
Curious.
She walks around his things, different than before because he's grown bored looking at king-making swords and magical axes. He half wants her to touch the dragon's tooth to teach her a lesson about poking beautiful things when you don't know their history; they might just bite.
It's the one thing she doesn't touch.
"It's quiet, Rumplestiltskin. What happened to your maids?"
Maid.
"There was a better price for her return."
She flinched too much. Cowered too often. Stuttered and bowed and sniffled and she had to go.
Regina seems to believe this a request for company because she sits.
He supposes a woman surrounded by dozens of people dedicated to her welfare and happiness would assume him lonely without even one.
"Come to take her place, then?" he stands behind her chair, propping his elbows on the back and leaning heavily over it, "Well, well, well. What can you do, dearie?" he asks as way to conduct the interview, "Cook?" he waves a hand by her head, "scrub?" and over her head, "launder?" and in front of her face when she fails to amuse him with even a snort.
"Can you say, 'yes, master. As you wish'?"
Regina leans back and tilts her head until she's looking up at him, "'Forgive me, my Queen, for I mean no disrespect'?"
He smirks. "Something tells me you're not overly qualified."
And she'd probably cost too much in the long run.
Medium run.
Short run.
There's every indication she's going to be pricey tonight.
She has a solemn thoughtful look about her, so he conjures tea. If her mouth is full she won't be able to bust out a heartfelt conversational dialogue.
"Tell me why you've come, dearie. What are you hoping for?"
No one comes to him without a deal in mind...
She sighs like he's so very pointless.
He does hope she hasn't come here to sit in miserable silence and darken his day.
"There's always something else." Perhaps Snow is the end all be all of the Summer Palace, but not here.
Regina smirks at him.
She always likes his games.
Rumplestiltskin sulks. Dramatically. "Then I'll guess, hmm?" He begins a theatric pace around the table. "I think I can." He taps his fingers along the table as he crosses it, "You have fame. Family."
She closes her eyes. 'Don't remind me.'
Of course, that. He knows Cora.
"It's so obvious," he tells her, "You wear your desires on your sleeve."
She looks at him in surprise.
"You wear it well?" He offers.
She's a passable witch, certainly someone a man on the street should not like to cross, but Regina is not powerful.
And why should she bother with it all, when she knows him.
When she knows him.
Rumplestiltskin leans in close and draws out the whispered word, "Power."
He can give her magic in a bottle. Skip right on over the training and take the easy road.
He's obliged to make a deal.
Regina says, "It wouldn't make her happy."
It's his turn to be surprised, though he hides the expression far better. There's only one person she could possibly be speaking of and he cannot imagine why Regina would give a damn for Cora's misery or happiness.
"But you?"
"What's your price?" She asks.
Regina looks deflated. She looks resigned and broken down and she looks like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.
No one gives him those expressions when he offers them power.
He shakes his head that she can look disgraced and shamed for admitting her daughter's life means something to her.
He would do anything, give anything, beg or grovel or die, to be in her position. To have someone who could snap their fingers and save his son.
"Hmm? For what?" He wants to hear her say it. To admit that she's not a soulless cutthroat.
Her lips purse.
He laughs.
"She deserves death."
"Why is that?"
Regina's silent and that wounds, truly, completely, so much so he has to smile.
He waits her out.
"She's a murderess."
He did not see that coming.
"And you aren't?"
"What's your price?"
"I don't know," he shrugs, "The King's sword?"
Her lips gave him a shocked, "What?" and her eyes gave him a bored, 'sure, why not?'
So much ennui is his usually fine actress.
"And!" Rumplestiltskin beams because he's him, and leans down low over her, "...I've never had royalty in my bed before."
Snow White will not die tonight and this conflicted and resentful Queen will not be resting in the Summer Palace.
Not for this.
"I'm not tired."
"Terms of the deal," he says, producing a parchment with the recipe to save dear Snow's life.
He dangles it in front of her and Regina looks up at the ceiling like he's affronting her.
Seconds tick by and he cocks his head to the side curiously. It's when he starts to pull away, to call the deal off in as many overindulging words as possible, that she reaches out.
Regina curls her fingers around the page, looking weighed down and heavy. She holds it like it's something precious and priceless. She holds it as a mother should.
"The fairest of them all," he says "deserves to die, then?"
There's little hesitation, "Yes." Little, but it's there.
Regina stands up and sweeps her hands in acquiescent gesture to allow him to lead the way to his room.
She trusts him.
It could be because of Cora. Perhaps he's enough like her wickedly powerful mother that he's familiar but comfortable to be around because he's not abusive.
Or perhaps King Leopold.
No one's made it a secret that Regina exists in the Summer Palace for Snow's benefit, but Regina's still a wife and a Queen. She wasn't hired on as an au pair. What might that doting father get up to, to make her so unhappy...
But Regina doesn't treat Rumplestiltskin as an authority figure she needs or wants to please.
Ah, well.
Rumplestiltskin doesn't feel he's bouncing off the walls with his limitless energy but Regina still can't manage to keep up.
He slows down for her and it nags at him that he must. Perhaps she'll be better company after a lie in.
At the door to his room she enters easily, sweeping through like it's always belonged to her.
What she gets out of King Leopold is the conditional presence of a daughter.
What she gets out of Cora is the conditional presence of a mother.
Which begs the question, "What do you get out of this," he says, gesturing a wide, all-encompassing gesture, 'my Queen'?"
She stops to look over the threshold at him, that invisible line that she trusts him not to cross.
"A flattering wardrobe."
"What?"
Regina turns her back to him. She runs her fingers along the comforter of his bed before reclining down. "I'm too young to be dressed for mourning."
He doesn't think she's purposefully misunderstood. He thinks her mind is so full of Snow White that everything else is discarded as unessential.
"Really?" he muses, "I think you'd look quite fetching in-"
In a cloud of black, Regina is gone.
Rumplestiltskin blinks, staring in surprise at the empty room.
'I've never had royalty in my bed before.'
He... probably had that coming.
Well, well, well.
Trust is overrated.
Rumplestiltskin slams the edge of his book against the phone three times. It makes a mangled, broken, final attempt at sound so he does it again.
He was asked to protect Regina, to the best of his abilities, and Miss Swan certainly constitutes a threat.
Regina bent over backwards for young Snow White and Henry's the one she actually likes. There'd be no hesitation, no edging around what must be done. Regina would run to his side and to hell with the consequences.
Her son is not here because Regina can love and sacrifice.
Snow White's daughter is alive because she can appreciate and understand.
But that doesn't make up half of the true Regina.
The History Channel is playing in the living room. Again. It's better than listening to the Food Network, but Rumplestiltskin rather suspects it's only a matter of time before Belle finds the station.
She's watching a documentary on the invention of the steam engine, which might turn out to be useful for her, but he doubts it.
It's half necessity, a bit of boredom and a lot of infatuation that has him sneaking up behind her.
Rumplestiltskin is very good at sly; at devious. Quiet and unexpected when he wants to be. Showing up out of the blue and none the wiser until he chooses to show himself.
Or he likes to think he is.
He expects a startled and grumbling 'ouch' from Belle when he creeps up behind her and snags a strand of her hair. He doesn't expect her fingers to dart out, wrapping around his wrist so quickly that he hasn't a chance to get his prize to a safe distance.
"Explain." She doesn't even look away from the television.
He can see his reflection in the corners of the shine on the polished black frame work around the screen.
Clever.
"I thought you might like to contribute to the madness that is her Majesty's obsession."
"And you need my hair."
"Yes."
"My hair?"
"No, not yours. Human though and you're the only one that qualifies." He says it lightly, in a flighty sort of voice that she cannot take offense to for its innocent teasing.
She snaps her fingers, holding her palm up. "Give it."
"Why's that, dearie? It's ruined for you and useful to me."
Belle turns around then. She turns around and she looks murderous. He does not like being on the receiving end of that expression. "You promised." She enunciates the words with a darkness she never had before she came to know him. Before Regina.
Oh, and yes, he did no such thing.
And even if he had, "You're overreacting."
"No. No, I'm not."
Well, this has come out of nowhere. This dramatic hostility and overbearing anger is insanely left-field and, "It's just hair."
"It's not always hair."
Oh.
Yes, he recalls something about that. It's certainly unexpected that hair's a trigger for a long ago exploitation.
It's unexpected she's even bothered still about it.
"That's not fair." Rumplestiltskin says, the words sounding like a question.
"It's entirely fair. There's no overreacting when the most powerful man in the world wants something from you."
That's an exaggeration.
"Because you can't say no."
Over. Reacting.
Rumplestiltskin puts his hands over Belle's eyes, forcing her to close them, and spins her around in a circle.
When he lets her open them they're no longer in the dining room but transported directly into a new room, a bedroom.
Belle figures it out instantly when he was, perhaps, hoping for a moment of confusion and some mustache twirling on his part.
She laughs and beams smugly at him, "I knew you didn't intend to keep me down there!"
He looks at her with great childish innocence. No, making her live in a dungeon hadn't been the overall plain, but he did keep her there for three days.
He rather hoped she did think that.
" ...What's the catch?"
His jaw drops in wounded distress, "Must there be a catch?"
She looks suspicious but it seems more a caricature than true disbelief.
He watches her do a circuit around the room, "Does it meet the princess's standards?"
"Well, anything's nicer than stone and straw," she teases.
He giggles. Yes, naturally.
She comes to stand beside him once more and for a moment he thinks she's going to reach out and touch him. That would be convenient.
She doesn't, however, so he reaches down to her hand, resting at her side, and stabs a pin through it.
Well. Pricks her finger just the same.
"Ouch!"
She instinctively yanks her hand back, closer to herself. "Clumsy?" he offers with a laugh.
The wound isn't deep and it isn't large but she was startled, even if the sting was mild, so he puts up with her look of suffering.
He takes her hand, despite her efforts to twist it away, and she looks at him with fantastically epic frustration.
He inspects the bleeding wound innocently enough and makes a sympathetic sound for her.
She huffs.
Belle tries to shake her hand free and his fingers tighten. "Rumplestiltskin, give me back my hand."
"I will." In a moment.
He shifts his hold to grasp her bleeding finger, putting pressure on it to well up just a few more drops.
Rumplestiltskin closes his free hand and when it opens a bottle grows out of it. "Voila," he says, though it's not one of his better tricks.
Belle stares warily at the contents inside and then laughs a nervous laugh, hoping to make light of it, or have him make light of it. A joke not meant to be taken seriously.
"There's the spirit!" he mocks to unnerve her.
When he tips her finger over the bottle she grabs his wrist and tries to push him off and pull her hand free.
All right, perhaps it was harsh to mock her. She's such a level headed thing he didn't think it would panic her. He didn't expect a fight over it.
Doesn't matter. Too late. He lets go when the blood drops inside and she cradles her hand to her chest, holding it close.
"What... was that about?"
"Aren't you a maiden innocent of all wrong doings?"
"You could have asked!"
He giggles, "Yes, yes. Too late now, dearie."
He holds the vial between them to show her 'no harm done.'
She leans in closer to look curiously at it, "What's it do?"
"Don't you worry your pretty little head about it."
He shakes the contents until the color changes, flecks of silver emerging from the base and coiling inside like writhing snakes.
And with them Belle sways unsteadily, tilting her head and looking, for a moment, quite vague. He checks her over in visual examination but she's exhibiting no unanticipated symptoms. Her eyes are glazing over, a little drugged. Her posture is wavering, a little drunk. Nothing harmful.
He has no desire to cause harm to his shiny new bauble.
"Yes, but what's it do?" Belle asks, holding up her fingers to inspect the still bleeding wound. She looks horrified over the small bit of red sliding down her finger so he reaches out for her, to help. It's the least he can do, fixing what he broke.
Belle flinches and not slightly. It's a pointed movement that insists he keep his distance. But she's too lightheaded to pull it off and it nearly overbalances her.
Rumplestiltskin catches her before she can bang herself up from a tumble.
Three days ago her bravery had overruled her desire to pull away from him as he wrapped his arm around her waist and led her away from her world, from her loved ones. It doesn't extend here. She's tense all over and trying to shuffle herself away from him.
He thinks she'll fall if he lets her go, even at her request, so he walks her back until her knees hit the mattress, nicer than stone, and assists her down.
"It's for healing," he says, though the bottle looks more sinister than soothing.
Most of his potions do.
"Why does a healing potion require me to get hurt?"
He smirks, believing her sardonic. "Lay down, dearie. You'll be right as rain in a couple hours."
It is, perhaps, not the best foundation for an inaugural slumber, but the sleep will be deep and restful and make up for it.
Belle snaps, "Tell me!" with an energy that surprises him.
She follows it up with a shuddering, nervous breath. She's frightened and he doesn't see why. He's here and it's his implied responsibility to protect her while she's under his roof.
"I don't understand," she adds.
"Yes, you do. 'All magic comes with a price.'"
"And I'm paying it?"
"Yes and no."
Her expression is profoundly disturbed and he wonders if perhaps he's throwing too much at her, too soon.
Well, if she's going to go off and be a nuisance about it he'll return her. She's in 'Like New' condition, doesn't that mean 'no questions asked'?
"You're fretting, dearie. Don't. You're just tired." Her eyes are heavy lidded and she's going to have to relax and lay down or risk crashing in an uncomfortable mess on a perfectly designed bed.
"Healing requires strength," he says, relenting and reminding her, "Just a drop of it," for that is all he's taken.
Her drugged body gives up on her and she's forced to slouch down until drooping to the covers. She shudders when he moves and he might be persuaded to pay workman's compensation.
"Hush, then." He says, "You'll be fine." He crosses his heart, "Promise."
Rumplestiltskin leaves room while she's still aware enough to watch him go. He hates to leave her curled up and awkward but she'll appreciate it more to show he's not interested than if he planned to stick around and tuck her in while she's unconscious and unaware of his actions.
Well, she'll be happy to know that she will be home in no time flat.
All right, yes, that was bad. But it's not the end of the story.
It's not the end of the story so he has no qualms saying, "Oh, I didn't hurt you."
"I don't know that!"
Don't.
"What?" he asks.
Don't.
"You have no idea what that's like, Rumplestiltskin. And I'm glad. You shouldn't."
He does not like the implication of her words.
He can't think straight through the dismayed realization that this is something she hasn't let go of. "What do you mean 'don't'?"
Belle didn't just confront him the next day, day bloody four, she went out of her way to set herself up for a death sentence. She purposefully lied, disobeyed, angered and manipulated him.
She stood across from him and got her way because she always, always, got what she wanted in the Dark Castle.
He knew she was angry, to be expected of course, but certainly not to a degree that she still held it against him.
It had seemed she instantly moved on.
It's bright and early in the morning when they meet again in his tower, his mad scientist laboratory. He steps through the door and there she is, standing on the tips of her toes to look at the shelves too high up for her to snoop through.
He stops, incredulous.
He had explicitly told her he did not want her here and he can't imagine where she'd get off thinking she can cozy up with his precious, dangerous and hard won artifacts.
He loathes that she couldn't last one week before betraying him.
Belle jumps, startled, when she realizes she isn't alone, "I'm sorry!" She doesn't look sorry. "Just, I couldn't find you."
"Oh, couldn't you?"
Of course she couldn't. He was hiding with his spinning wheel, in the main room, the one place he always gravitates towards. Why ever would she think to look there?
"Nope." Belle says cheerfully, "So, I thought I'd look here."
He scans the room, inspecting his more valuable and precarious items. He doesn't see anything broken, misplaced or stolen.
"Don't worry," Belle soothes, "I didn't touch anything. I just looked."
He looks over at her, not amused. Belle says, "I made biscuits," biscuits, "and tea," tea.
His teeth clench.
Belle raises her eyebrows, bright and blameless and looking for his approval.
This passive aggressive retaliation is both hazardous to her health and very misplaced. She never once asked him not to use her as ingredients. This isn't 'making a point,' it's just another person complaining after the fact, as though it isn't their fault for overlooking the obvious.
It's a dangerous game to play.
It's an extraordinarily bad move to make.
She stands next to him. Tiny, powerless, and daring him with her actions to do something about it.
It's incredibly beguiling.
She didn't just make him tea, either. She brought him the chipped cup.
So very daring.
"I really didn't touch anything. No harm meant." She crosses her heart like she can't wait to suffer, "You can trust me."
"Of course I can, dearie."
"I didn't think you'd mind. Just this once."
"Just this once, then."
She turns in a slow circle to look around the room, nods her head in wonderment and turns back to him.
"I'd best be on my way, then. I hate to interrupt. I know you're a busy, busy man." She smiles brightly at him, like she respects his work ethic, and her expression doesn't even look fake.
He watches her go, shutting the door behind her without a backwards glance.
The tea is cold and he wonders how long she was waiting here to put him in his place.
Rumplestiltskin laughs. There's simply no other outlet for his opinion on the matter.
He's keeping this one; Belle isn't going anywhere.
He played hero, he saved hundreds of people, and in return he was given this little sheltered princess.
Rumplestiltskin always gets the better end of all his deals.
Belle stands up and he knows, he just knows she's going to stomp off to Regina with their horrible 'understanding' and he's going to sleep on the floor for the rest of his life.
He bolts around the couch, catching her waist lightly, so lightly, and he's sure she's going to carry off on her way without even a shrug to dismiss him.
She says, "Let go of me."
He hardly has a restraining hold on her but he acquiesces just the same.
Doesn't love mean 'never having to say you're sorry'?
He supposes Belle's never seen that movie.
He watches her, waiting for her natural calm to return.
It doesn't.
"Belle..."
She holds up hand to silence him and then turns it palm up. This time he returns her hair, only to see her pull each end until it snaps.
She doesn't look at him as she turns and walks away.
"Where are you going?" he asks.
"Wherever I want."
Rumplestiltskin turns away for fear she's stomping off in Regina's direction. Best he not see because he knows he wouldn't be able to put up with that.
Anyone else, but not Regina. Not when he knows the horrors she inflicts on people, not when he's seen her sadistic glee as she does it.
Maybe Belle had some tough times with him but there doesn't exist a worse confidant than Regina Mills.
Belle drags him off to bed, later that night, in indirect forgiveness for their quarreling.
Belle said 'don't.' She spoke in the present tense. Rumplestiltskin isn't going to bring it up, not now that she once again wants to move on, but he can't decipher if it was said in anger or in truth.
She has a strand of hair, darker than her own, shorter, and she hands it over without complaint.
He can't see Regina's scales, so she's probably human enough.
Regina would know instantly the ingredient is benign for the fact that he went to Belle first. She knows he needs this ingredient for her. It's only natural she would hand it over.
But there's an unspoken understanding in the gesture:
She's siding with him.
And she didn't just side with him at that; Regina made Belle the intermediary.
Whatever else the two might have talked about, Regina stood next to him; across from Belle.
Belle can't be swayed against her beliefs or values but the suggestion that Regina trusts and agrees with him can only work in his favor.
Rumplestiltskin's beginning to notice that the majority of Regina's actions do, in fact, work out in his favor.
He tells himself, at first, that he's only invited Regina along because he promised Belle he'd take her request to heart and he owes Belle so very much. He tells himself his actions are not to be mistaken for guilt.
Then decides that a lack of self-awareness leads only to oversights and inevitable failing and so he man's up to the fact that he has a conscience.
It's the necklace and the phone call. It's that Regina followed him and let Emma lead, for her son's safety. It's how beautiful Belle looks in the power suits and silk blouses Regina gave her and how Belle's nightmares stopped when Regina showed up.
It's the way Belle turns even the hardest of villains into knights in shining armor.
So now here he is, with a conscience and a glimmer of gratefulness, brewing spells with Regina.
Despite Disney's assertions the Evil Queen is, in fact, rubbish at potions.
It's not that she blows up cauldrons or turns people into accidental mice, no. Those are relatively easy brews that anyone with a cookbook can accomplish. Regina just lacks the delicacy and enduring patience needed to properly cook up a powerful brew.
Regina actually sets a timer.
They're not making cookies but that's okay. It doesn't matter. Some people have no intuition and work differently than him.
The timer falls into the sink.
Accidently.
"Rumplestiltskin, may I ask you a question?"
"Oh yes, dearie. Ask as many as possible."
She glowers and he laughs, waves his hand and says, "Go on, go on."
"Can you manufacture true love?"
"Can I?"
He hopes this isn't about her long ago fiancée. Rumors to the contrary, he cannot raise the dead.
He gestures to the ingredients with a look that informs her 'this is why you're intermediate at potions' She stirs counterclockwise and adds coal tar to the mix, "One person in all the world, worlds, in all of time itself, billions upon billions..."
An assembly line of people. Pick out the ripest one.
"What if you never, hmm," she tilts her head and considers him like the word is on the tip of her tongue but she just can't reach it.
"...Find?"
"Intersect with the person who will love you above all others."
Rumplestiltskin finds the answer easy enough, "You could try raising one." He giggles at his own little joke and Regina's smirk is a clear, 'touché.'
"What are you getting at?" he asks and because he's making such an effort to get along he doesn't see it coming.
"We meet a lot of people every day, dozens, hundreds, coming and going. There's a buffet of choices." Regina didn't get the 'cease fire' memo. "How many people are in your world, Rumplestiltskin?"
It's too late to cut this off at the source, so he tries distraction on for size, "You've forgotten the sweetbreads."
She adds them, "How many do you meet each day?"
Belle lived in a world of two.
"Your Majesty..."
"Far be it from me to question your love life, but haven't you wondered?"
Of course he has.
"Regina." He uses her name because it's always a harbinger, Rumplestiltskin using proper names, but he stops there.
Regina isn't smiling but her eyes are alight with triumph.
Rumplestiltskin could retaliate now, 'oh won't you please pour this boiling potion over your head' or wait for something more profound to assert itself, something less physical and richly cutting. And he wants to, he wants to.
But he knows this has to end. They can't keep awaiting the next line of attack.
The price of the necklace jibe, "Yes." He doesn't owe her more than that, but, yes.
He's questioned every particle of Belle's existence twice over.
The admittance mollifies her, but doesn't shut her up, "There's a name for your relationship."
Deep. Calming. Breaths. "Is there?"
"Oh yes." She moves back from him, to the other side of the stove. This can lead nowhere good. "Stockholm Syndrome."
Wise of her to put distance between them.
"This conversation is over." He hisses despite his ever loving want to come across flighty and bored.
Regina says, "And when she realizes it, she's going to look at what you've done and what you haven't done-"
Rumplestiltskin sings, "Please, please, please..."
There's no real command there, nothing offered for what he's demanding. All he really wants is the threat laid out between them.
Regina points her finger at him, eyebrows raised and looking for all the world as though he's the one making a mistake not letting her judge and ridicule his relationships.
He considers requesting that she please stop looking smug.
"You're right, of course." She says, "Silly of me to presume you're not three steps ahead of the game."
"There's no game, dearie."
"Love is always a game."
It's the first time she's acknowledged it, verbally. All things said, it's nice not to see a derisive smirk on her lips as she does.
It boggles the mind that Regina would consider herself adept at anything of the nature.
...It boggles the mind that he should think she isn't. Love is the game Regina plays.
But he doesn't want to manipulate Belle.
Regina shrugs and says, "Cave."
"Cave?"
She could not possibly exude 'amateur' more if she tried. "To everything she wants," Regina draws out the words, enunciating each one with a relish. He hates when she does that.
He glares at her dispensing relationship advice when he's given Belle absolutely everything she's requested-
Ah.
Well then. What is this, hmm? He doesn't like Belle confiding in her, like Regina's a substitute for her long gone mother, there to impart the wisdom age brings.
Of course he sees what Belle finds so appealing about the Queen. He knows all the charms of Regina, the manufactured and the authentic, and she possesses all the qualifications necessary for a girl like Belle to offer a hand in friendship to.
Regina is someone who needs to be saved from herself.
Unfortunately, an obligatory component for redemption is the aspiration for it.
But he's sure Regina's grateful for the ammunition. It will fit snugly into the quality 'I hate Rumplestiltskin' time she schedules into her day.
In a simpering voice Regina asks, "Did I traumatize you? Is that where this drama is coming from?" Admittedly Regina, or rather her deceptions, does have a thing or two to do with it. "Oh, you're not going to let little ol'me stand in your way, are you Rumple?"
"Little ol'you, dearie? Perish the thought. I daresay no one has ever been as invested in my happiness as you, your Majesty."
"I'm glad you see it that way."
"Of course. That's what makes our bond so strong. We look out for each other, you and I." He smiles with teeth and she flashes her fangs as well.
Regina has no instinct for potions, no years of training ingrained into her to recognize the subtleties of a simmering pot, the changing consistency or the delicate tinting shades of color it turns when properly brewing.
She has none and she steals his when she says, "Tell me then, given our close acquaintance, is it nerves, dear?"
"What?"
There's mischief in her eyes where malevolence had been. A playful turn of her lips vanquishing the ridicule, "It's okay. It's been, what? A few decades and then some." Or a century. Whichever. "Are you out of practice? Do you need a tune up?"
A pop, sizzle and burn and he barely registers what instinct is telling him to prepare for before he's banged back against the counter top, the edge cutting painfully into his side. There's a boiling stew of harmful magics he's not quite quick enough to stop from splashing him.
Well.
That's a bit of a lie.
Rather, he would have been quick enough if the explosion hadn't knocked Regina onto the floor. It was equal parts surprise and proximity that made her overbalance, but fall she did and right beneath the firework storm.
Regina's life is more precious than his own. It's one of the perks you get when holding aces; her perfectly unmarred body and his broiling burns.
Regina curses, the smoke alarms go off and he blinks something that might be vision back into his eyes.
He hisses at the horrible green blisters on his arm and looks sharply at Regina when she laughs.
Apparently it's not at his expense because her eyes are trained on the ceiling.
Regina says, "Or you could have said 'shut up.'"
Rumplestiltskin gasps in play pretend shock, "Am I getting blamed for this?"
They both read the instructions.
Regina takes a deep breath and smugly admits, "No."
He rather likes her on the ground, at his feet, but he reaches down anyways and says, "Come back, get up here."
She takes his hands and pulls, much harder than he thinks necessary, herself up.
He hears Belle screaming, "Are you okay?" from a distance and then her frantic steps thudding down the stairs.
Rumplestiltskin makes a sweeping gesture at the mess they've made of the kitchen and the fog of smoke dissipates and liquid evaporates.
Regina's fingers curl around his arm and he detests the feel of her magic inside of him, stitching up wounds and making him cringe.
There are holes burned into her blazer and she shrugs it off. He rolls his eyes that Regina cares so very much about appearances.
She turns to the kitchen entrance as Belle comes skidding into it, grabbing the wall to stop her momentum, "Is everyone okay?"
"Mmm," Regina says, "Your boyfriend is not so skilled as he pretends."
Boyfriend.
...Not so skilled? "All's well, dearie. Her Majesty is as easily distracted as a cat with string."
Belle smirks at their playground insults. It's as good as she's going to get for all her longing that they get along.
Rumplestiltskin feels this is a bit like the rhythm he once had with Regina; able to work together and not become a tangle of limbs reaching for the same items or bumping into each other as they walk around.
Belle's beaming cheer says she knows.