Chapter 2

Well, it started out on the right track, but it quickly went downhill, Lacey thought as she plunked the tea down on the long wooden table. In case he hadn't taken the hint, she huffed a little.

"You kept me in that dungeon all night," she groused.

"And I shall keep you there as long as I choose, and you shall say naught about it, unless you—"

"Yeah yeah, I know: spend the night in chains. Well, at least that would spice things up a bit, but only if you come down and see me." She leaned forward as she poured the tea to give him a good look down her dress.

He looked.

She walked around the table and behind his chair, running her hand along his arm. "So, uh, after you've had your tea and biscuits, how about a little game of the Monster and the Maiden?" She raised her hands in mock horror. "Oooh, oooh, I'm afraid the big scary monster will chase me around his castle." And she leaned over him to offer a second look.

He stirred his tea. "The floor is filthy. Get to work, dearie." A water bucket and a scrub brush appeared at her feet.

With a sigh she dropped to her knees and began to scrub.

Well, this game was just no fun at all.

He tossed her in the dungeon again. "I have an errand. I shall return when it pleases me." He slammed the door.

"Wait! Don't you want to, like, throw me down in the hay and have your way with me first?" No answer came. "Hello? Hello?"

Meals appeared and when she had finished eating, the dishes disappeared. A tub of hot water and a bar of lye soap appeared, and as she peeled off the ball gown and slipped into the steam she looked around for a hidden camera. She didn't find one, but he had to be watching, so she took her time soaking.

As the water turned cold and her skin pruned, she grew impatient. "Mr. Gold! Don't you want to join me?" Silence. "There's plenty of room." Silence. "Come on, I'll wash your back for you." Silence. "Mr. Gold?"

When the iron bar slid aside and the door flew open at last, four days later, she flew at him, throwing her arms about his neck. "I was so bored! Why did you leave me so long? Hey, I enjoy a tease as much as the next girl, but this is ridiculous!"

"Chains tonight!"

"Oooh, Mr. Gold!"

And it was chains for her, all night long. And only chains.

In the morning he appeared before her in a puff of smoke. She hung from the chains, her arms bearing much of her weight; when he released her she dropped into his arms.

"I want to go home. This isn't fun any more."

He spun on his heel and walked out. "Fetch me my tea. Don't be slow about it."

He knew she'd been searching through the cupboards, shelves and trunks ever since she arrived here. Whenever she cleaned a room, she used dusting as an excuse to search. It was not snooping—the first time he brought Belle to the castle, he caught her snooping on numerous occasions and whenever he'd wag a warning finger at her, she'd blush and apologize. In those days, she just couldn't keep her curiosity in check.

No, Lacey wasn't curious. She showed no interest in the strange objects in his collection, and that pained him, for Belle would often pause, dust rag in hand, and walk around some curio, peering at it, but careful not to touch it (she learned her lesson the first time: she had poked an investigative finger at Merlin's hat and it had squeaked in protest). He would watch her from a doorway or his wheel, until she'd make little noises of interest, in hopes that he would come forward with information, and when he tantalized her by merely smiling, she would break down and beg for the item's story.

As he spied on Lacey sorting through his cupboards, he missed Belle with an ache that gnawed at his edges and robbed him of appetite and sleep. And what Lacey was searching for made him angry. He'd fold his arms and scowl, smug in the satisfaction that she would never find what she was searching for because he didn't keep it.

He taught her to wash clothes using an iron tub and a scrub board. He taught her to cook using kettles and pots over an open fire. She'd never done more than throw a TV dinner into a microwave, she said. She complained about how much work it took just to make a loaf of bread, never mind the stews and cakes he preferred. She fell into bed cursing him, exhausted from her labors.

Gradually, he noticed an increased jumpiness and irritability on her part. He'd find her pacing the hallways, the edge of a finger in her mouth: her once painted nails were gnawed to the quick. She grew silent and withdrawn for some weeks, and he felt sorry for her: his gut recognized her anxiety, for it was the twin of what had tortured him when he passed the Storybrooke city limits and lost his magic. He knew exactly what she was going through, and because of it, he treated her all the more coldly. In the land they'd left, the treatment was called "tough love."

Finally she broke down and asked, hope and worry mixed in her voice, "Don't you have any alcohol around here?"

He answered shortly. "No."

"Not even wine?"

"No."

"Well, you're a powerful magician. Whip some up for me. I want a scotch on the rocks, but I'll set for a beer."

"No."

"Well, how about a little grass?"

He nodded toward the windows. "You have miles of grass awaiting you. Help yourself."

"Come on, you know that's not what I mean. Weed?"

He smirked. "In the gardens, sweetheart."

She stamped her foot. "Pot!"

"In the kitchen, dear."

She turned on her heel and stormed out, her shouts bringing into doubt his mother's species and marital status.

He introduced her to the Dark Library, which took up the entire west tower, but she sneezed at the dust and complained that he had no Ipads or Ipods to entertain her. "Not even a TV, a radio?"

"Open the windows and you will hear music."

"Open the windows and my hay fever will go haywire."

He looked at her gravely. "You used to love the songbirds that live in my orchards."

"You know what you get with birds?" She sneered at him. "You get bird crap, that's what. You ever had to clean bird crap off your car?"

"No cars here, Lacey."

"Your carriage, then. You do have one of those, don't you?"

"I do. The horses have long since run off."

"Use your magic, then. Hey, why don't you take me shopping? Like, there must be some stores around here, huh?" As he walked away she pranced around him like a pleading child. "Aw come on, take me shopping. Please? Pretty please?"

"There are no 'stores around here.' No towns, no neighbors. We are quite alone."

She ran off then, slamming the door to her dungeon-bedroom.

He caught her going through the potions in his lab, unstoppering each bottle and sniffing at the contents. One of the scents seemed to attract her, for she tilted the bottle, intending to pour a little onto her finger so she could taste it, but his booming voice behind her startled her and she dropped the bottle. His magic caught it before it hit the floor. Setting the bottle back onto its shelf, he growled at her. "Must I child-proof this room from you?" He pointed to the bottle. "That, my dear young woman, would have turned your entrails to stone and your skin to alabaster."

"Stone?" she echoed dumbly.

"Indeed. It's intended to turn living things into statues. Regina invented it. Took her three years to perfect it." He squinted at her. "And believe me, girl, it is perfect."

"Well, if you don't want me in here, give me something to drink then!"

"You have eleven flavors of tea to choose from, and nine flavors of coffee from around Fairytale Land. And if those options bore you, I will conjure a goat and teach you how to milk."

"One lousy drink! Can that be so hard from the most powerful man in the world?" She threw her hands into the air and nearly knocked over a shelf of vials.

"Watch it! You'll blow up this entire castle!"

With a huff she walked out.

She set aside her dust rags and came to stand behind him as he spun. "Whatcha doin'?" She set her hands on his shoulders and leaned in, purring into his ear.

"You have eyes. I'm doing nothing different from what I was doing yesterday and the day before." He gave her no satisfaction, not even glancing at her.

She ran a flirty finger over the shell of his ear. "Always so busy. No time for a little. . . fun?" She nipped at his ear lobe.

"Begone, woman. You're blocking my light." He brushed at his ear as though chasing away a mosquito.

"Aw come on. You're a man, I'm a woman, we're alone here. We both have needs." She licked at his neck. "It must get cold in that big old bed of yours, all the way up in that cold, dark tower." She nipped at the spot she had just licked. "How about if we sit down by the fire with a glass of wine and. . . talk about it?"

He withdrew his hands from the wheel and turned on his stool to glare at her. "And what would be price to me for this conversation, dearie?"

"What?" She released his shoulders. "What do you mean?" Her face blacked. "Are you—are you calling me a hooker? How dare y—"

He grasped her wrist, saving himself from a slap. "A very cheap one, my girl. You would sell yourself for a drink, wouldn't you?"

"You sorry son—"

"Nuh uh, none of that." He wiggled his fingers and one of her dust rags flew into her mouth, effectively gagging her. "Consider this the Enchanted Forest's version of the Betty Ford Clinic." His eyes enlarged as he leaned forward, sneering into her face. "Now get back to work!" he barked.

He left the room before she could see how his hand shook. Walking in his dead gardens to calm himself, he muttered a vow to get even with Regina for this—but the truth, he knew, was that it had been his curse that produced "Lacey"; Regina had just cast it.

By her calculations—kept by little tick marks she scratched into the wooden door of her "room"—she'd been stuck in this castle for three months. He'd finally provided her a new wardrobe (ankle-length dresses and kitten heels) and he'd begun to allow her to sit with him at mealtime, and to sit beside the fireplace in the dining room as he spun straw into gold (a feat that impressed her less and less as the weeks wore on). Sometimes he would answer her questions, if she adjusted her tone just right.

"If you wish to talk to me, do so as one human being to another," he insisted. "Not as a harlot to a customer."

So she dropped the act. It had ceased being fun, anyway, when he failed to respond to it.

Fall evolved into winter, winter into spring. He taught her to plant; she seemed to enjoy it, unlike Belle, who would sneak a book out into the garden when she was supposed to be weeding.

She stopped snooping. Her hands had grown rough, her knees red, her face tanned from her work in the gardens. But as her body grew leaner and her skin coarser, her vocabulary and demeanor grew softer. In the evenings after supper she would sit beside the fire while he spun, and he would tell her tales from around the world. He had learned many during his travels, and he experienced many adventures of his own in his long life. She listened and asked questions and daydreamed.

And a strange thing happened: he asked her questions too. Real questions, not just her zodiac sign and her phone number; questions about her childhood and her hopes for the future and her thoughts about the nature of men and gods.

"You're one heavy dude, you know that, Rumple?" she remarked.

"One tends to become so, I suppose, when one has lived three hundred years."

She gave a low whistle. "Three hundred! Man!"

And another night she tested him and found he really had listened to the things she'd said. "You really pay attention, don't you?"

"A requirement of my profession." He stopped spinning. "And I find it makes an otherwise overlong life a little more entertaining. I find listening to you highly entertaining, Lacey. I always have."

"Huh." She sat back in her chair to think about that.

She found herself watching him as she poured his tea. Sometimes she'd lean on his shoulder or brush against his hand accidentally. She began to wonder what it would feel like to have his arms around her, his lips on hers, her name spoken softly in his rolling accent. There was music in his voice, artistry in his fingers.

They called him a monster, no matter what face he wore. He could be that, but she'd come to realize it was pain driving him. She knew a little about pain. Perhaps they could help each other, she thought, and then she looked in a mirror at her changed appearance and knew they already had.

She walked the halls, wondering. Feeling. Wanting. Especially wanting. Wanting it all: his hands on her roughened skin, his lips against her throat, his breath in her ear, making her shiver; his shoulder to lean on; his chest to rest her head on; his stories and thoughts and knowledge; his kindness and his passion and his anger and his heartbreak. All of it, and she wanted to give it all back to him.

And when his hand brushed against hers, when his voice called her name from across the Great Hall, when his laugh prompted hers and hers, his, she understood he wanted all of her too.

"The windows need washing," she said, and he provided a ladder for her, so she climbed to the top with her bucket and rags, sloshing water all over her blue dress. He joked with her as he spun at his wheel.

Chasing down a speck on the highest window pane (he always inspected her work and found fault with it), she perched on tiptoe. Her elbow bumped the bucket and it slipped, and without thinking of the possible consequences she grabbed for it. Her heel caught in a rung of the ladder and she teetered, her arms swinging wildly. She cried out as she fell over backwards.

He caught her.

"How did you—I mean, you were over there—" she pointed to his corner, halfway across the room.

His shoulders shrugged beneath her hands. "Magic."

She struggled to catch her breath. It wasn't just the fall or the excitement of the rescue that had stolen her breath. She stared into his huge gold eyes and saw something there that made her think thoughts she'd never had before, made her feel. She had to stop and assess the unfamiliar sensations. Protected. . . warm. . .comfortable. . . safe to be herself, not an act to amuse other barflies.

Her heart leapt into her throat.

"Are you hurt?" His voice was low. "How do you feel?"

She rested her head against his shoulder. "Real. I feel real."

He started to set her down, but she clung to him. "No, wait." She touched his cheek with her damp hand. "Rumplestiltskin, wait."

He pressed her tighter against his chest and his voice dropped to a whisper. "What do you want, Lacey?"

She stared into his eyes a long moment, and then she suddenly knew what she wanted. She pressed her lips against his, and as he responded and she poured her soul into the kiss, magic engulfed them, swirling about like a gentle summer breeze. His mouth moved against hers and his heart beat against her hand, and she knew she had come to the end of a terrible journey that she hadn't even been aware she'd been on. She had arrived at last and now she was home.

When he withdrew from the kiss, she nuzzled against his cheek, now smooth and tanned, and looked into his earth-brown eyes. "Belle," she said firmly. "My name is Belle, and I love you, whether you call yourself Rumplestiltskin or Mr. Gold."

He studied her in amazement for a long moment, then grinned as he returned the kiss.

"Let's go home, Belle." He had to set her down to open the double doors; he had no magic to do the work for him. She slipped her hand in his and helped him push the doors open. Beyond the gate, the vortex waited, glowing and swirling.

She looked down into it. She wasn't afraid; Belle always expected good things to happen. "Back to a land with magic," she said.

He nodded. "Back home."

And with a kiss they leapt.

A/N. Hey everybody! Thanks for reading this little wish fulfilment story. I'd appreciate some advice: I'm always debating with myself about ratings, and this story was no exception: it had adult themes and a couple of slightly racy jokes, but no graphic descriptions or heavy-duty swearing, so I wasn't sure. . . . Would you say this story should have a T or an M rating? Thanks for your thoughts!