AN: Hey everyone, so here is the third chapter of my fanfiction. I only made an account last week and this is actually my first attempt at fanfiction EVER, so I would really appreciate reviews! After reading some other fanfictions I got the feeling that I'm doing more story-setting and taking longer to get to the plot than most, but I've always wondered about Belle's life in the Dark Castle before she and Rumple fell in love. So I hope some of you have an opinion to share about that! Thanks for reading!

III

The day had come when Belle had had to leave the rags of her yellow gown, tenderly folded, in the back of her wardrobe. She chose a plain blue dress from among the row of garments – one of the signs that another girl had lived in her room once, like the old hairpins on the dresser and an earring she had found under her pillow. Whoever she had been had been small and slender, too; the dress fitted perfectly and Belle had studied herself in the mirror for a long time. There was the same face as always over the strange blue dress - the pale skin that would burn mercilessly after summer afternoons spent on the river banks; the curling auburn hair that looked like a bird's nest first thing in the morning; and the bright blue eyes, inherited from a mother who had died before she could remember her. It was the face exactly as she had seen it the morning she had woken up at home for the last time, although she wasn't to know it.

For a long time after her arrival, Belle had been in such a state of shock that, when she wasn't wiping and cleaning with furious vigour or wandering through the gardens like a lost soul, she spent her time lying in her bed staring up at the canopy in a depressed stupor. She was desperately homesick, conjuring the faces of her father and everyone from home before her mind's eye every night before she went to sleep, and almost relished the thought of wasting away until the Master had to send her home, if only for a brief visit. But if he ever considered letting her go he gave no sign of it and as it turned out, Belle was not the kind of person to be broken so soon. Over time her memories of home had grown less vivid and with a strength she never knew she had, she had finally gotten out of bed and taken to exploring the Dark Castle and the surrounding gardens. There were still signs that other people had lived here once, ages and ages ago, and in the many, many hours she had to kill she made it a sport to hunt for these signs of life. Playing explorer had been her favourite game when she was a child, and there wasn't much else to keep her from going insane.

There were the pale marble statues, half-hidden between the shrubbery along the garden paths, that someone – not the Master, she was sure – had sculpted and placed here, asymmetric figures with missing arms and noses now. An angular "B" had been scratched into the bark of a willow tree by the pond. And in some bushes she had found a child's wooden toy sword, snapped in two; a child had lived here, once upon a time. She cherished every splinter of her discovery.

In the castle she had seen oil paintings of strange men and women, closets full of old-fashioned clothing, reading spectacles abandoned on writing desks, one frozen little breakfast room with a full breakfast set out – completely untouched – as if the breakfasters had only stepped out for a moment. And she had stumbled by chance upon a room that confirmed her find in the garden: it had clearly belonged to a young boy once. There was a muddy pair of boots thrown in the corner behind the door and an array of pinecones and tin soldiers and a half-deflated ball under the bed. Holding up the clothes found in the drawers against her own body – they were almost big enough to fit her – she guessed he had been twelve, maybe thirteen. But who had he been? Could it be that the Master had lived here himself growing up? Had it been another prisoner in the Dark Castle? Or could it be that the Master had had a son once? She found it hard to believe that he could have been human enough to father a son, however, to have loved someone and lived with him here as a family.

But then again, the Dark Castle, although she had endless hours to explore it, didn't tell her anything about her Master. Of the thousands of doors in the vast place, there was only a single room that was locked to her, and this was the room she assumed was the Master's study. She knew the room in which he slept, which was as impersonal as could be – a simple wooden bed, almost a cot, a washing basin and a wardrobe where he kept the clothes she laundered – but she suspected that his real room was this study, where he did whatever it was the Master actually did. He spent the vast majority of the time he was home in there with the door firmly locked, often until well after Belle had gone to sleep. She had tiptoed up to the door once or twice to lay her ear against the door in the hopes of hearing something to tell her what he was doing, but there seemed to be only complete silence on the other side. It was, she assumed, just another spell cast on the door to keep intruders out; one time when he was away, she had made an attempt to pick the lock with an old hair pin, only to have the end of the pin melt away into nothing as soon as it entered the lock. She had looked at the short stub of the pin that was left, thanking the heavens she hadn't stuck her pinkie in, first.

But the truth was that her exploration missions around the castle didn't change the fact that the times when the Master was home were the only times when something happened, when something was different. It was the only proof that she wasn't the only person left on earth, the only person she saw who wasn't a crumbling statue or dark oil painting. Much as she hated him, she needed him. And as her loneliness began to overcome her fear she was more and more drawn to him – after all, there wasn't much more he could do to her now.

"You've been working an awfully long time," she said casually once, when he had emerged from his study after what had seemed like an eternity.

"Oh, but I've got all the time in the world for this."

"It's something special, then," she ventured.

"Very special." He seemed in particularly good spirits that day. "Let's just say that when I'm done with this little gizmo, no children will escape me next time I hunt them for their pelts!"

Belle froze – the word came back again, grimmer than before. Beast.

He regarded her with indulgent amusement. "That was a quip," he said. "Not serious." He cackled. "What, did you think I'd have you skinning children next?" He had side-stepped the question of what he was really working on, however, and Belle decided not to pursue it.

Better to save his favours for the request that had been growing in the back of her mind for a long time. She was not sure what to make of the erratically jumping seasons outside the garden wall, and she could tell that her memory was starting to grow holes. When she called to mind the faces of her family and friends, she realized that she was already losing their faces and voices with alarming speed – they were fading away out of her grasp, and there was nothing she could do about it. She knew instinctively that it had something to do with the enchantments on the castle, and although he had told her their deal was forever, she couldn't help but hope that he might let her leave the castle for just a brief visit, if she built it up and started with a small request first. The Master was fickle, though, so the issue was to ask him at the right time. Although he was unpredictable, she had by then learned to divine his moods as far as that was humanly possible.

He was in gleeful good spirits sometimes, speaking to her in the same leering tone in which he had quipped about the children pelts; sometimes he was in a bad mood, his voice clipped and irritable, slamming down his fork with his food barely tasted; sometimes he was listless, leaning on one elbow as he ate. They corresponded to his progress on the mysterious project in the work room and to events in the outside world, she knew, although it was impossible to get him into specifics.

"You seem cheerful," she had tried a few times when his mood was good, and he had laughed his high-pitched laugh. MwaHA.

"War time is the best time for striking deals, dearie," he might say, "but then, you would know all about that." Or: "A deal's a deal, and someone has learned that valuable lesson today." When she would pry further in her most casual tone – "Is it a big war? Who learned the lesson?" – he would wag his finger at her and say: "Such a curious dearie."

But no matter what his mood, on the occasions when he would sit himself by his spinning wheel and spin those endless coils of gold, he would turn quiet and earnest, his slim frame upright but relaxed. She had chosen this time, when had taken to his spinning after his meal, to make her request. It seemed to her that this was when he was in the most obliging mood.

"Why do you spin so much?" she had started, looking at the gleam of gold in the candlelight. "You've spun straw into more gold than you could ever spend."

"I like to watch the wheel," he had said in a soft voice. "It helps me forget."

"Forget what?"

He sat frozen for a few seconds and she held her breath in sympathy, expecting the first real answer he had ever given her. Then "I guess it worked," he said, and his face split in a wide grin as he laughed his usual MwaHA. Caught unawares, she laughed too – a spark of humour she didn't know she still possessed. She thought she saw a glimmer of something in his eyes in the brief moment before he turned back to his spinning, his face lowered attentively to his work.

"I'm forgetting, too," she said, sinking down on one of the dining room chairs unasked while she watched him. "But unlike you, I'm forgetting things I want to remember forever."

The wheel turned, creaking softly; the golden thread ran between his thin fingers.

"Nothing ever changes in this house," she continued, "in the few years that I've been here…" She shrewdly waited for him to correct her, to tell her how many years exactly, but when he remained silent she continued determinedly. "I am starting to forget what it's like to see time take its course. I wish – I just wish I had something from the world outside, to tell me the truth about what happens there."

He didn't respond or even look up. But she knew he was listening.

Belle was on her knees scrubbing the vast floor of the large hall. She had lugged a large bucket of suds there to start this momentous task and had gradually gotten into it. As she scrubbed, splashing freely with she soapy water, she sang the old lullaby about the nightingale to herself because it echoed nicely between the marble walls and there was no one around to hear. Or so she thought; looking up to wring the rag over her bucket, she suddenly realized that the Master was watching her from beneath the gallery, leaned against a pillar.

"Did you need something?" she asked, dropping the rag and running a hand over her forehead to brush the hair out of her face. How long had he been there?

"On the contrary, dearie," he said. "I have something for you." He approached her slowly, holding one hand behind his back.

"For me?"

"It seemed there was no harm in offering my housekeeper a little token of my appreciation," he said, and presented his gift: a single red rose.

Her face brightened immediately. "Oh, it's beautiful," she said, reaching out to take it. For a moment she thought she saw something in his eyes, had the feeling that he didn't want to give her the flower, and she was overcome by the feeling that something was very off – but then he handed it to her with an extravagant bow. She accepted it with a curtsey. "Where did you get it?" she asked, inhaling deeply over the petals. The flower was in full bloom, and the sweet scent was strong.

"Just an old woman selling flowers," he replied. "You know I make it my business to strike deals, not grant wishes. But we haven't had fairy godmothers in this house for centuries, and you did say you wished for…how did you put it so poetically…something to tell you the truth about what happens in the world outside."

"I did," she said. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, dearie," he said in a low voice. "Just treasure it while it lasts."

"What –" she started, but he had already turned and was sauntering towards the door, whistling tunelessly under his breath.

She looked at the rose again, thrilling with happiness. The rose had grown on sunshine outside, rain that fell outside, had felt the touch of bees and butterflies: the rose came from the same world as her family and friends. She heard a door close and when she looked up again, the Master had disappeared. And at the same time, a shocking change came over the flower in her hand. At first it seemed to open wider, appearing almost to blossom more as if rearing up to the very fullest – then she realized that it was rapidly and unstoppably dying, its outer petals curling at the edges as the whole flower sagged in upon itself, growing darker and then black at the edges. The flower shed dry petals once by one as she ran to the door after the Master.

"Master!" she screamed into the corridor, even though it was empty and she knew that he was gone. The pathetic, empty stalk in her hand degraded to dust that slipped between her fingers; the flower was supposed to tell her the truth about what happened in the world outside. And it was completely and undeniably dead.