Just so those readers wondering why it takes so long for me to update - well, there are a few reasons. One: school. Two: other fics. Three: this is a LONG chapter. A lot happens, and I have to comb through it many times for language, pacing and typos. I hope the wait wasn't as agonizing as getting this written. :) Thank you for the lovely reviews! They really do help motivate me.
Warning: there are references to sex and a mildly sexual situation, but nothing graphic. Feedback is much appreciated!
An occasional draft from the window and the gaps between stones brushed against Belle. Every time she shuddered against the floor, face-down. The straw prickled against the tender bruise on her cheekbone. She would have turned her away to relieve it, but the other side of her face bore a scabbing cut she feared tearing open with the brittle hay. Nor could she turn onto her back. The pain there was still too fresh.
Sleep had been close to impossible. The dreams that came when she managed to drift away shortly sent her back. She'd dreamed of her father almost every night, but they'd gone from terrifying to merely sad. They brought her home to him, in the library or his study. The two of them discussed politics, her most recent literary obsessions, and places he'd traveled to and hoped to take her someday. Often these dreams ended with her father saying goodbye, as if they would see each other again soon. Sometimes Belle cried; sometimes she felt relief. Yes, someday they would be reunited, and by the gods' will under happier circumstances.
Last night's dream was like her earlier ones, only more bizarre and upsetting. She was lost in a labyrinth. It was lit with only feeble flames in black sconces. She took one and wandered the lifeless hallways to find a notable or recognizable detail. For a long time, it seemed, she could only walk and walk, and with every step the light of her lamp dimmed. Then, out of no apparent feat of intelligence, she found a hall lined with doors. She ran to the first she could reach and flung it open. Open sky hung above her, tinged with red along the horizon. Dark forests stretched out below. Her bare feet lingered on the edge of a steep precipice, too sheer and flat to climb down without rope. Crows screeched in the sky and flapped their huge wings. Belle watched them form a circle around another bird: small, white. A dove. Belle called to it with the intention of sending a message to her father. To tell him where she was and to come to her rescue. But the dove was too entangled in the murder of crows to see her or approach where she stood. At last she relented and closed the door.
She tried other doors, and quaked on discovering that they were all dungeons, though of different sizes and variously decorated. A few were furnished with chairs and a sprawling bed with velvet pillows and a fluffy duvet. They were still dungeons. Belle shut those doors, too.
The last door alarmed her and made her deathly curious. Its bronze handle resembled a goblin's head, mouth open in a grimace. Grabbing it by the ear, she pulled the door back. Muted light from a hearth illuminated a grand but dreary room stocked with shelves of random objects. Treasures, she first guessed by the gold twinkle many of them had, until she noted the assortment of peasants' clothes, leather balls, quills, parchment scrolls, and rolls upon rolls of wool. A collection of large and small spinning wheels lined up against the farthest wall. The wall also featured many mirrors. The mirrors and the spinning wheels pulled her in. The fireplace stood to her left and emanated enough heat to stop Belle's shivering. She stepped inside, toe by toe. As soon as she came all the way in, the door slammed. Giving a gasp, she ran back and tried to pull it open again. It had locked her in.
Then came voices. Voices she recognized by degrees. A shaking Belle turned around. The mirrors became animated with figures. She approached them with only half a mind, half a will. The other half was sucked in by a greater force. The first mirror was oval and had a webbed silver frame. Looking through it was like spying through a window filled with fog, but Belle soon made out her father's heavy body being dragged to a guillotine scaffold by a pair of faceless guards. His eyes sat deep in his skull, shadowed. Wore nothing but a grubby tunic and leggings. His feet revealed bloody blisters on the soles as the guards hauled him up the steps to the executioner's block.
Belle had a notion that, if she turned away from the mirror, the event taking place would come to a standstill. She veered her gaze to the right and found a rectangular mirror with a frame carved into entwined branches. In it Gaston was slashing his way through King Dathomir's armies as they invaded the castle. She had not seen him since the siege. It made sense that in all the confusion he took it upon himself to fight against mad odds. Gaston was like that. Nobly intended, but a little too certain of his own skill and strength. With every vibrating clash of metal against metal, Belle quaked and braced herself for the moment he would be a second too slow, or commit a moment's miscalculation. The anticipation made her ill.
The door deserved another try. She looked away from the mirror and moved to go. However, her blouse snagged on something. Her skin tightened. She looked down and saw it had caught on the tip of one of the spindles. Belle tugged at it. The garment wouldn't come free. More tugs drove the spindle deeper into the cloth until it speared through and created a hole. She growled and reached to wrangle the spindle out.
"Don't touch that!" A scaly hand slapped hers away. It was a hard slap that stung more than she imagined the spindle would have hurt. Belle twisted around as far as she could. Rumplestiltskin, adorned in black-red leather that glinted with menace in the firelight, regarded her with a cold glower.
"Didn't you ever hear the story of the girl who pricked her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel?"
She wanted to move away from him, but the spindle arrested her. Her only way to freedom was to remove her blouse, and though she'd been somewhat naked in front of him before, it would have been acutely degrading.
The imp stretched his huge mouth into a crocodile smile. "Where would you go, anyway? Don't you want to watch?"
Against her better sense, her head pivoted back to the mirrors. She witnessed firsthand every stage of Dathomir's attack and the massacre of her father's army. Red swords swung and speckled the grassy forest and village she once roamed at her leisure with fluids and entrails. Her gaze followed the refugees from the battle trudging through the pungent marshes that were her duchy's namesake. The fleeing survivors could not go by the roads now that the king's soldiers had taken control of them. The marshes left them vulnerable to arrow volleys from higher ground. The swampy lands quickly became littered with open-eyed bodies. Men, women, children, animals. Their blood leaked into the green waters and turned them brown.
"Please stop!" Belle's voice cracked with sobbing.
"That's how they lived and died, Lady Belle," whispered Rumplestiltskin. He perched his thin, kneading fingers on her shoulders and spoke next to her ear. "That's how lucky you are to be a noble. You only have to sit in prison for the rest of your life, fed and sheltered. What about them, dearie? Did your father and handsome groom-to-be care about them? Were they not just fodder for the ogres, and then the king's men? Does it make it easier to think on how your own life will be once our deal is through?"
"We have no deal!" Belle didn't care what he'd said about the spindle. She grabbed it and tore the blouse off. How it happened she couldn't explain, but a sharp pain radiated from her thumb to the rest of her hand. It burned, then went numb. She held in a cry when she saw that the spindle had run through the digit, impaling the pad and almost penetrating the nail on the other side. Blood oozed out, dark and thick. Her head swam, as did her stomach. She clamped her hand around the thumb to stop the bleeding. Her legs staggered. She'd been intoxicated with something. Calloused feet fought for balance. Much to her distress she had only the mirrors to keep herself awake and upright. The events she'd seen earlier - her father's execution and Gaston's suicidal attack - had paused while she didn't watch them. Now they moved again. The guards forced her father to his knees. His watering eyes looked up in spite of his head being forced into the guillotine slot. Gaston was taking on three soldiers at once. His doublet had been rent open by too many close nicks, and his swings were growing sluggish. He was tired. Forehead and hair were drenched. From behind him came a fourth soldier, axe raised high. Gaston didn't see him.
Belle dropped her gaze. "Why are you showing me this?" Her tongue started to stiffen, but she forced the question out even as her balance slipped away. She stumbled backward into Rumplestiltskin's chest.
He locked his arms around her, all dragonhide sleeves and silk ruffles, and nudged his nose against the shell of her ear. "I didn't pick these scenes, dearie. You did. I'm just providing the canvas for you to paint them on."
"Take them away," she mumbled. Even as her strength ebbed, she squeezed her injured thumb hard. It hurt only a little.
"Oh, but you're about to miss the best part!" He nodded upward. A heart-shaped mirror, larger than the others, revealed a view of a stately bedroom. Belle saw herself sitting on the bed in a silky white nightgown. The neckline dipped low enough to display her cleavage. Two long slits in the skirt did the same for her thighs. Her skin shimmered healthily in the light of the fire and candles, yet her expression was that of a corpse. Mirror-Belle did not look up when Dathomir entered the picture, robed in burgundy velvet. His large hand cupped mirror-Belle's chin and angled it up. She moved as he wished. Her expression never altered. It didn't alter when he pulled her to her feet, rented off the nightgown with lightning execution, then gently but definitively pushed her back onto the bed without a stitch of clothing to protect her.
"That is how your child will be conceived." The imp snickered. "Is it really worth it? To throw your life away for a child that, in the end, you won't be able to stand because of what it will remind you?"
Whether it was the drug from the spindle or the way Rumplestiltskin held her up, Belle could see all the mirrors at once. So much pain. Suffering. Degradation. Death. There was a standing mirror before her, too. Of her and Rumplestiltskin. She looked about as dead as the other mirror-Belle, whose body was now hidden by a thick, naked Dathomir.
Almost worse, actually. At least that mirror-Belle had clean hair and skin and a cared-for body. The Belle in front of her was a disgusting waif. Draggled locks, tangled from neglect, hung stiffly from her head. Her dirt-smudged face had lost the color and fullness of health. Once rosy lips had cracked and scabbed. Her clothes, what little she had, looked like they'd been thrown into a rubbish heap a few times before being drudged up for her to wear. She had fallen much further than she realized. In that moment all the hate and anger she could contain arose like a monsoon and drowned her. It crashed over her head and swallowed up the light she'd kept locked inside. How rewarding it would be to give away Dathomir's child to this monster behind her, and know that he was powerless to stop it. To rob him of the joy of raising a child - for after that Belle would exercise every method to avoid the king's bed, or be as cold as an ice witch to his advances. He had taken so much from her, and would continue to do so if she let him. Yes; he didn't deserve her consideration. Her mercy. Her forgiveness. He ought to pay. He would pay.
After many seconds of tight breaths, her head slowly cleared. A stab of pain ran up her arm from her thumb. She looked at it. The gushing began to abate, but the thumb throbbed. She removed her fingers for a better look. The stab had gone so deep she couldn't believe it. A terrible injury, and a foolish one. She'd brought it on herself, and in nothing more than a fit of frustration. Shame silenced the raging voice that cried for retribution against the king. Shame and a short-lived self-deprecating smirk.
The images in the mirrors vanished. The walls of the room started shrinking and closing in. Panic sent Belle tearing out of Rumplestiltskin's arms and running for the door. Her feet caught on the carpet, but she stayed up and reached the door. She threw all her strength into wrenching and kicking at it. It still wouldn't give.
"Let me out!" she yelled while turning back to Rumplestiltskin. Behind her was only the room and its strange contents. As the walls got smaller. The mirrors shattered. The spinning wheels splintered and crunched into each other. Other objects tumbled off the shelves and smashed on the floor.
"Let me out, Rumplestiltskin! Please! Rumplestiltskin!" She pounded and pounded until she felt the broken objects pressing into her back, cutting through her blouse and into her skin. Her arm no longer had room to move. She screamed the dark wizard's name a third time.
Coming out of the dream had a disorienting effect. She was of course glad to find the room was not real, nor was her interaction with Rumplestiltskin, or the scene with Dathomir and mirror-Belle. But the rest - well, who could say for certain? If she ever had a chance to see her homeland again, she might find to her dread that the events she envisioned did come to pass that way. But that could wait. There was still the here and now to be dealt with.
Belle blinked away sleep but would not move anything else. Pain assaulted her with all its might now that she could not escape to sleep. Her anger in her dream reemerged, though at only one ounce of its power. It wasn't even directed at Dathomir or herself. Oh, Dathomir had plenty of fault to own to, but she had expected this treatment in response to her alleged recalcitrance. He was a keg reacting to a spark. It was the person who ignited the spark in the first place, and set it so near the keg, who had to answer for it.
Vivid recollections of the dream visited her while she lay alert and still. She relived the final moments of it once more just as Rumplestiltskin appeared, unobserved and sudden as ever. He announced himself before she could see him. "It pains me to see a lady so distressed!"
She would not deign to address him. Managing to move her arm, she pressed her face into it and remained mute.
"Ah ah ah, dearie! Crocodile tears won't help you now. I made my offer and you turned it down. But since you called for me, I presume you have become more willing to consider it."
"I didn't call for you," she said, equally angry and confused.
"No? But you did. I heard you clear as day." His flattened voice revealed his own confusion.
Belle sighed into her arm. Did she project that loudly in her dreams? He better not have been peeking in with his magic, nor at any of time she dreamed and thought. As a matter of privacy, not because she had anything to hide.
"Well? I'm waiting. Unless you plan to pout like a child. In that case . . ."
"Go away, Rumplestiltskin. Just go, please." She felt burgeoning tears. Belle didn't care. She had a right to shed a few, and she would not be made ashamed of them.
The imp dared to scoff in offended surprise. "Are you going to pretend that Dathomir won't find out?"
"He already knows."
"Ah." He crouched down. She glimpsed up. His leather trousers stretched over his knees and thighs. She looked further up. He wasn't wearing the coat today, but his black scale-composed vest was on display, as was a pair of coverings that ran from his shoulders to his wrists. They each ended in a stiff, claw-shaped strip that curled over his hands. "Then I take it this dour mood is thanks to his threats against you. How ever did he find out?"
She set her head back down. One of her hands clenched around some straw. "I told him."
Rumplestiltskin's breath stopped short. Scowling, Belle forced her head up again. His cruel, playful grin had been swept away. He looked . . . horrified.
"You what? Are you out of your mind? When? When did you tell him?"
"Last night. What does it matter?"
His brows dipped down. He shifted to the side so the sunlight could hit her in the face. She groaned and shut her sore eyes. Before she could drop her head again, the imp's fingers found her chin. They looked each other straight-on.
"Where did you get these?" A gray-green finger traced the gash on her cheek.
"Where do you think?" Belle said.
The thumb of his other hand rubbed the bruise in grazing circles. She resisted wincing at the contact. Rumplestiltskin stared at her as though he couldn't understand what he was seeing. "Did they do anything else?"
While his question settled into her skin with a balm's effect, it also provoked a ruddy tint in her cheeks. She didn't want to flaunt her injuries for pity. But since he was asking, he ought to know what his offer and her refusal had wrought. She tried to sit up. It left her whimpering in spite of her remnants of pride. Belle couldn't have uttered a word if she wanted, so she pointed over her shoulder and diverted a little pain by chewing on her lip.
After a hesitant, uncomprehending stare, the wizard dropped to his knees and crawled behind her. She started to work on the laces of her bodice. Her hands stilled when Rumplestiltskin's palm lightly touched her back. A hiss squeezed out as she arched away from him. Another whimper followed. She ordered her hands to move faster to undo her clothes. She had the last tie loose enough to pull the bodice over her head when the garment vanished. So did her blouse. And her corset. Belle yelped and covered her naked breasts that prickled from the cool air.
"Was that necessary?" Her indignation and discomfort carried her voice over the stinging on her back. "I would've shown you if you'd waited."
No answer came from Rumplestiltskin for a while. There was only his breath, coming out more ragged with each exhale. She shuddered when he came closer and she could feel it on her shoulder. The last thing she wanted right now was for him, or anyone, to touch her.
"He did this?" Rumplestiltskin growled out the rhetorical question. He sounded appalled as well as baffled.
"Not personally. But he was there to watch."
Her mind tried to assemble a picture of what her back must have looked like. The cuts from the whip were probably surrounded by swollen red skin. Still mostly open with only a thin layer of rough scabs creeping in at the edges. The guard assigned to the task had lashed her at least a dozen times. She'd lost count as the agony intensified and it became harder to think straight. Just the sound of the whip singing through the air, and then cracking before another stripe of pain bloomed across her skin, made her flinch. She would always flinch when she heard or thought she heard it, she realized. Her back wasn't the only part of her that had been scarred.
Belle shivered again at the mumbled stream of heated words dribbling out of Rumplestiltskin's mouth. She didn't need to understand to know the emotion behind them. He was angry. Anger was in the whistling breaths between his teeth when he stopped talking. She quaked at his response, but she wasn't afraid anymore.
"What was that?" she asked innocently.
"Never you mind."
There was no chance to press him on the issue. A tingling coolness stopped her. It kissed her wounds, starting from the top at the nape of her neck and creeping down her shoulder blades, spine, ribs. When the tingling passed, the pain was gone. Belle straightened. She could move again! Forgetting her near nudity, she looked behind her. Rumplestiltskin's eyes turned up to meet her gaze.
"What did you do?" It was hard to subdue her surprise and gratitude.
The hazel orbs shifted back and forth. They seemed torn between looking away and staying on her face. Rumplestiltskin's mouth searched for words that wouldn't come. He got as far as blurting out a few "I, uh"s and "um"s and making some movement with his hand she couldn't see from her angle. She took a chance. Adjusting one arm to cover both her breasts, she reached back with the other to feel her skin. It was smooth. No scars, either, which she had expected to carry for years.
Even in her relief, she could not forget what the imp did to her yesterday. The way he'd spoken to her, the position he'd cornered her into - she couldn't let herself forget how she'd come to earn those lashes. "Why did you heal me? Because you thought if you did, that would make everything all right? It doesn't, you know. You left me here to my fate. Didn't you want this to happen?"
Rumplestiltskin's nostrils flared. His eyes went so wide Belle could imagine them bursting out of the sockets. "I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to tell the king. You were supposed to call for me, beg me to help you."
"Agree to your horrible deal, you mean."
"Yes!"
Belle scoffed in disgust. "Then you must know I won't. Not even if they lash me to pieces, or cut off my head. And what will you do if that happens? Fix me up again? You think that will make me like you?"
Rumplestiltskin guffawed. "So much for gratitude!"
"Gratitude?" She was on the verge of screaming at him, regardless if anyone could hear or not. "You left me to die!"
"I did not! Stop being so dramatic!"
She meant to shout something back. Instead she burst out laughing. Unintentionally, of course, but it was hard to fault herself. The way he flung his arms as he said those ironic words brought her close to tears. With still enough sense to maintain some decency, she doubled-over to hide her bosom while her body shook.
"Oh, yes," she eventually gasped. "I'm being the dramatic one here." Belle shook her head and let it hang. She needed air and her wits. It was still only morning and this argument, and her ordeal last night, were driving her to exhaustion.
When she could breath again, she peeked over her shoulder. "May I have my clothes back?"
Rumplestiltskin's ears reared back, making his forehead and hairline recede as well. He ran his eyes over her and faced away all in a single second. Apparently he'd grown oblivious to her state of dress in the middle of their shouting match. His hand came up. A rush of air blanketed Belle. It then closed in and formed fabric, and the chill from the breeze transformed into assuring warmth.
"Thank you," she said. Touching the coarse clothing to be sure, she confronted him in a more generous mood, though he didn't deserve it. All the same, staying bitter would contribute nothing to the situation. It was also difficult to be angry when he - this old imp who'd wreaked havoc and terror on the Realms for hundreds of years - sat with his legs folded and his hands cradled in his lap. The leather trousers and black coverings over his blood-red shirt failed to mask how much he looked like a child who'd been caught in the wrong and was starting to realize just how badly he'd behaved. She wished he'd decide to be either this or the man from yesterday. It wasn't right to go from demanding, threatening and heartless to heartbreaking and beguiling. If he would stop confusing her, she'd be able to judge how she felt about him and work with it.
He still had a forbidding aura, however, which helped Belle attend to the problem at hand. It also distracted her from the impulse to touch one of those lepidote hands and its hardy nails. She probably would have felt this way about a wild lion at rest. Whether or not Rumplestiltskin was as dangerous as a lion, she would mind herself to not get scratched again.
She mimicked him by crossing her legs and resting her hands in the same way. "I suppose you have experience with this kind of deal," she said, collected and quiet. No more shouting or snapping if she could help it. "And I can see why other girls in my position would accept it. But I can't. I won't. I know it would haunt me for the rest of my life. So if you try to push me into it again, and leave me at Dathomir's mercy and expect me to give in later, you'll be even more in the wrong than before. You know now that I won't give you what you want. So why are you still here? Why are you healing me and being much more civil than before?"
The imp wouldn't look at her. He hunched over as much as his leather clothing would allow, and stared only at his hands. Though he didn't face her, the crease between his eyebrows and the soft frown demonstrated his uncharacteristic uncertainty. He probably did not realize how unguarded he was being. He might have still trusted his strange skin and intimidating outfit to uphold his dark sorcerer's facade. Or maybe he found it pointless to maintain it to the same degree. Maybe (so Belle hoped) he knew she had him a little figured out, so he relaxed. A warm buzz came alive in Belle's stomach, which she pressed down. She wanted to believe it; that was the danger. More than anything - more than decent clothes, or an actual bed, or fresh air and freedom - Belle wanted a friend. If Rumplestiltskin hadn't come along, she might have expended her strength charming the guard who brought her food. It wasn't, however, just the loneliness that stoked her yearning. The man himself, who changed personae as often as his stockings, provided a challenge and a comfort she didn't know she wanted until now. And what about him? Yesterday he said he had no intention of being her ally. Today he healed her back without any promise that she would play his game. What did that say about his attitude toward her?
He held off answering for what felt like an hour each minute. Belle kept her peace until he spoke his peace, appreciating the silence.
His response was heralded with a sigh. "It's possible I've been . . . hasty in judging you. I've underestimated your stubbornness. It doesn't happen often, mind you! You're right that there's a certain way these particular deals happen, and you've gone and made a mess of it." He slid his gaze toward her. Out of the corners of his eyes, which made their edge all the more incisive. But Belle felt safe. "You can be sure I won't make that mistake again," he finished.
"I believe you," she said. "So, what do we do now?"
Rumplestiltskin opened his lips to speak, but then stopped. A hand flew up and alighted like an impertinent bird on her cheek. She thought to pull away but didn't when she felt his magic again. His thumb touched the long cut, and it shrank into nothing. With the same hand he healed the bruise on the other cheek. There was a faint purple glow both times. The magic and his skin were cool and gentle. Even so, Belle thought it prudent not to sigh as deeply as her appreciation demanded. Her eyes stayed fixed on his, and his on hers, throughout the process.
"We make another deal," said Rumplestiltskin once he withdrew his hand. He raised a finger when she tried to cut in with her expected objection. "When two people each want something the other has, a deal can always be negotiated."
"And you still want my firstborn?" Belle asked.
"Now more than ever."
Though he spoke calmly, his point-blank tenacity shocked her more than his usual theatrics. She was still in the dark as to why he wanted her child, and now she feared her actions had made the price all the more desirable to him.
Rumplestiltskin suddenly grabbed her hands. "But first thing's first!" Even in tight leathers he was quick to his feet, and he pulled Belle up without trouble. Releasing her hands, he stepped back and wiggled his fingers like they were feeling the air. He eyed her up and down and smiled. "This will never do."
He splayed his hands and ran his gaze over her body again, only more slowly. The purple magical mist returned, seeping up from the ground and coiling around Belle.
"What are you doing?" she called out in the blinding cloud. She got her answer in a moment. The cloud disappeared, and she found the clothes Dathomir had given her very much changed. In fact she was sure they weren't the same clothes at all. The fabric was softer yet more substantial. The loose off-white blouse acquired a pristine shade and hugged her torso more snugly while still being comfortable. It had cap sleeves instead of three-quarter sleeves. The bodice and skirt were both redyed midday blue. She even had low-heeled shoes now, and white thigh-high stockings.
When she sent him a bemused look, Rumplestiltskin shrugged at it. "Blue looks better on you. It brings out your eyes."
"That's very . . . kind, I guess, but don't think because-"
"No, no, no!" The imp waved his hand, exasperated. "I don't want spend day after day looking at you in those pathetic rags. It's depressing."
"Fine." She rolled her eyes. "But that is assuming we can come to an agreement."
"Naturally." Rumplestiltskin drummed his fingertips together. "Tell me your conditions. What would need to happen for you to willing give up your child to me?"
Belle shook her head. "How can I rationalize giving up my child for my own sake?"
"You'd be surprised."
She turned away with a huff. Her eyes ached, compelling her to rub them. "I have no idea."
They both went silent. Several times she watched him lazily pace the dungeon. Her feet followed his lead. But her pacing and her folded hands did not yield any ideas. It was still too difficult letting herself imagine giving away her son or daughter.
"You can specify the conditions of the child's welfare," said Rumplestiltskin. "I can ensure that it will be healthy, cared for, and will have all the needs and comforts you desire."
After mulling over these suggestions, Belle stopped walking and turned to him. "All right. You must guarantee that my child will go to a good home, where he or she will be loved and provided for. It doesn't have to be a wealthy home, but it must be a nurturing one. And safe."
He nodded, and smiled just a little. "Anything else?"
These conditions were all well and good, but she still felt uneasy about it. The element of this arrangement that bothered her most was the act of giving up someone who was her responsibility. The child would someday learn the truth when he grew up. How strong would his resentment be? If he were raised by loving adoptive parents, perhaps not very. But the knowledge that he'd been abandoned in the first place would surely leave a mark. She couldn't allow that. There had to be away to avoid that outcome.
"Would I be allowed to see my child after giving him up?" she asked.
Rumplestiltskin thoughtfully pinched his lower lip between his claws. "You won't be able to raise it, if that's what you mean. But perhaps as a visitor?"
Though her heart felt a sad weight, Belle said, "I could live with that. I want my child to know that I love him. He'll probably come to resent me anyway, but I'm more worried that he'll think I gave him away because I didn't love him enough. That he wasn't worthy of my love."
A nod from the deal-maker gave her more courage. So did the increasing softness in his expression. It left her wondering if his gentle attitude had roots in his past. He must have had a family once. She wanted to speculate more, but with almost nothing to go on speculation became a dangerous occupation. She dropped it and returned her full attention to the conditions.
"I want to visit the child regularly. Once a month?"
"Once every two years."
She gawked at his demand. Then she caught the sardonic twitch in his grin and realized what he was up to. He wanted her to haggle. She closed her mouth and squared her shoulders. "Once every quarter."
"A year."
"Half a year."
Rumplestiltskin squinted one eye and tilted his head. He made a long nasal sound while considering, then said, "Done."
"And I'll be able to speak with the child? Will he be allowed to know I'm his real mother?"
He whined in thought again. ". . . yes, as long as it does not intervene with his overall upbringing. Remember, you're forfeiting your claim on the child. Whoever I select as guardian must consent."
Heavens, now they were bringing in parties that didn't even exist yet. Beyond the child, that is. But she nodded. "That brings up another important point: how involved will you be?"
His eyes widened and his head jerked. "I assumed that after I took the child, you'd want me to stay as far away from you both as possible."
"On the contrary. I'd want you to keep an eye on the child when I'm not around, and protect him if he comes to harm. I know you say you can be sure that he'll go to a good home. But things happen. People make mistakes, or they go wrong because of circumstance. Your chosen guardian may end up not being up to snuff or have problems. I know very well that life is hard, and I can't protect my child from everything, but I'm leaving him in someone else's care. I have to do all that I can for his well-being."
Rumplestiltskin put his hands on his hips. "I have other things to do, you know. Why should I waste my valuable time playing nursemaid to one child who means nothing to me?"
"You are the one asking for the child," Belle countered with rising sharpness. "And whether you think so or not, that places responsibility on you. It takes two to deal, Rumplestiltskin, and if anything goes wrong, I won't be the only one to blame."
The imp laughed in sudden understanding. "Of course! This is all about covering you. I should've guessed. No one invested in their child's safety would make me responsible for it."
"Don't even try that. It's because I care about my child that I want you to look out for him. And even more so if it's a girl! Will you agree to this or not?"
With a snicker he walked away a few steps. He soon turned back again. "You're wrong, dearie, about this being my responsibility, too. I don't owe you or that child anything once I've placed it in somebody else's arms. But . . . I will agree. I'd like to know how an offspring of yours turns out."
It was better not to think on what he meant by that. She preferred just to be glad that he agreed in spite of his objections.
When he asked, a bit tartly, if she had any more conditions, she had a deep-seated feeling that there was something else. She listed off what had already been covered. The last item, Rumplestiltskin's distant guardianship, had been laid out in vague terms. She did not know how to make them more specific, nor how to assure herself that Rumplestiltskin would uphold the condition as she wished. All this bargaining would take her only so far. There had to be more in it. If only there was a way to inspire genuine interest on his end. As he said himself, outside the deal, the child had no value to him. It was still impossible to guess what he was really getting out of this, but she trusted him. And though it may have been wiser to keep him out of it, Belle felt a strange kind of ease imagining a powerful sorcerer watching over the babe she could not. He might try to use the child for his own ends in the future, but he would allow her to interact with her little one and educate him on how to deal with the imp. That would be a very interesting development to observe.
But she did need one more thing. One more protective clause. She went to the only obvious topic that had been left untouched. Dathomir's reaction to her giving away their firstborn was not hard to project. Regardless his bizarre love of gold, the king must have wanted an heir to continue his legacy. He might have entertained some bloodline pride that would curdle at the intrusion of a little giggling wizard coming to claim his reward. There would be conflict, if not bloodshed. She couldn't let that happen.
An idea sprung from the swamp of her ponderings like a young bullfrog. It was a half-suggestion. Yet it stuck with sappy resilience, and the longer it lingered the more Belle saw it was the only answer. The notion rocked her and stole her breath, even making her involuntarily put her hand over her mouth. She dropped it quickly, but not quickly enough. Rumpelstiltskin saw the gesture and watched her. He could read her, she surmised. Her face reddened, her chest contracted with faster breaths. She stumbled from distraction and an uprooted stone while walking away from him. She hoped with every fierce fiber she had that he wasn't peeking into her thoughts.
After another moment of composing herself, she asked, "Does Dathomir have to be the father?"
Rumplestiltskin pushed up his sparse brows. They dropped back down and shaded his eyes. "Why shouldn't he be?"
"Well, I can just imagine how he'll act when the baby is born and you come strolling in to lay hands on the heir apparent."
"Maybe he won't care if it's a girl."
"I'd rather not risk it." If Rumplestiltskin could take off with Dathomir's offshoot (neverminding it would also be hers), Belle would not pretend it wouldn't bring her a little satisfaction. But the king's wounded ego was an insignificant grain to the larger concern of what Dathomir might do to reclaim the child. And what Rumplestiltskin might do with a child of royal lineage.
"Very well. Choose your partner where you may. Can't say I blame you for shirking fidelity." His sing-song lilt still pricked her with its veiled chastisement. She was sure he did hold her somewhat accountable for her proclaimed adultery. She was actually glad for the response. It meant he hadn't considered that she might find a suitable partner before the marriage.
"Good. Then I've made my decision." Her breath fluttered between sentences. Lungs and heart suddenly slipped out of her control. She tensed her arms, legs, back and shoulders, and much of everything else in between. Still, the more involuntary parts of her flaunted their rebellion. Even her hands started trembling. She locked them behind her.
"Oh, goodie! I hoped we'd be done before I aged another century." Rumplestiltskin smiled widely and joined his hands in front of him. "Do tell, milady."
He wasn't going to be so outwardly cheery in a moment. Then again, he might be genuinely cheery. Belle gulped some air. "This is my final condition. I will agree to give you my child on the day he or she is born, if you submit to the terms we discussed, as well as this." She swallowed again. "That you f-f- . . . that you father the child."
It took some extra nerve that lived and died in that one moment, that one breath used to utter the phrase. Paralysis let her continue aiming her gaze at Rumplestiltskin, as much as it pained her to view the screaming shock bleeding into his face. It was worse when he broke into a laugh that sounded like someone was choking him. She would've preferred swagger right now. Arrogance would have let her merely blush with shame and irritation. His stupefaction frightened her. What must think of her?
He blinked twice. "Why?"
She tried to shake away her tremors. "Why not?"
"That's not an answer!" He suddenly appeared before her, either by running inhumanly fast or teleporting. He grabbed her just below the shoulders. "Tell me! For the child? Is that it?"
"Yes!" That got him to let go. She stepped back. "A child needs his parents. And since you'll keep close by him, anyway . . ."
Rumplestiltskin spoke through a sneering smile. "You'd burden him with a monster for a father? It's not bad enough you're trading him away to save yourself?"
"You can be cruel," Belle snapped back. "You twist words and hearts, but at least you'll be there. Watching over him, if nothing else, which Dathomir won't be able to do. It's not a sunny prospect, but you brought this on! You and Dathomir. It's going to be one of you. My choices are limited."
"At least he's a man!"
She held her tongue and listened to Rumplestiltskin's labored breathing. He was a dog that had barked its lungs out, and was fighting to retain its threatening appearance when it had even less strength to bite. Sweat drops beaded his forehead. She remembered the off-the-skirt handkerchief she'd given him and wondered if he still had it. Keeping her eye on his brow, Belle came forward and rested her palms on his shoulders. His muscles stiffened. He still breathed loudly through teeth and nostrils.
"If you think I should be ashamed of bearing your child, you're wrong. No more than bearing Dathomir's. You may not be a man, exactly, but you're built about the same as one, yes? Aside from your magic, your age and your skin, there's not much else that makes you different." She performed a very cursory examination of him with just her eyes. He unwound as she did, as she'd hoped. His exhales and inhales quieted with each alteration, and when she returned to his face his jaw had slackened, and his eyes had gained a muddled, watery sheen. "And just so you know, it wouldn't matter if the child came out looking like you. All the more reason to watch out for him, or her." She grinned from picturing a little girl with Rumplestiltskin's reptilian complexion and gaping eyes. The image made her skin lightly shiver, yet it had an endearing quality, too. She only feared that it would inhibit the business of finding suitable surrogate parents.
His expression came down from stunned fury to sad disbelief. Belle had a mind to slap away some of it. This could not have been the first time someone made an offer like this. It couldn't have been. The chance it might be awoke an ache in her chest.
The imp did eventually recover. He blinked some more and arched an eyebrow. "I hope you understand what this means."
"What?"
He chuckled. "I mean, I hope you understand what baby-making entails."
"Of course I do." Belle hoped the put-off tone masked her awkward shudder. "I was engaged, remember?"
"That's right." His smile returned at last. Hard to say how much she missed it when it taunted her so. "Did you manage to gain some useful experience?"
She flexed her still hidden hands. "No, not quite. I did read up on the subject a bit, but that's it."
Again she expected a patronizing smirk or headshake. The corner of his mouth did jump up into a surprised grin. It sank back down before he set his mouth closed, neither smiling nor frowning. Shyness fell on Belle like a curtain. She looked at the floor. By chance her gaze landed on Rumplestiltskin's right hand. Its thumb rubbed repeatedly against his index finger, just as it had a few times before. Must have been a tick.
"When did you want to . . . do the deed?" he asked.
She forced her jaw loose before meeting his eyes. "As soon as possible seems best."
Rumplestiltskin drew up the hand she'd been watching. He held it to his chest, and relinquished the unconscious rubbing to point downward. "You mean now?"
"Now? Oh, no!" She looked past him to the slim window. Sunlight filled it and threw a rectangular sliver on the floor. Dust specks danced in the beam. "It's still daylight."
"Oh, I see!" Rumplestiltskin giggled and hopped back. "Don't want to see the monster in all his terrible glory when there's enough light to see by!"
"It's not that." Her face warmed and tingled again. She wished she could move beyond blushing at every mention of that particular form of intimacy. "It's just . . . I didn't think people did that during the day!"
"Another time, then?" He rotated his hand and unfurled it. The gesture was meant to disguise his discomfort, she guessed from experience, but she also fancied that there was a gesture of permission coded in it, too. He unfolded his fingers toward her, rather than upward for the sake of flair. As if he were giving her an opening. If she wasn't more sensible, she would have inferred that he was trying to be courteous, not just vexing.
"Tonight," she found herself blurting out. "I'll let the king know I can do what he wishes. We'll seal our deal after sunset. Will that do?"
"Agreed." He curled his hand shut. "You better be sure, dearie."
"I am. And I told you to call me Belle."
He lowered both his arms. Belle saw the thumb nudge against his pointer finger again. Just once. It told her enough. "We'll see after tonight." The purple smoke came again, and he left again.
She almost forgot that she was supposed to be suffering from her lashes when the first food tray came. It clicked in enough time to let her drop onto the straw and recreate her pained pose. It wasn't easy to manage pretending to be in searing agony while telling the guard she was ready to be compliant. She pleaded through hisses and grunts to let the king give her the day to recover, and she would returning to spinning tomorrow. The guard left and did not come back, nor did anyone else. As Belle expected, Dathomir did not visit her cell this time. He would not lavish her with more attention than she deserved. Not unless there was gold to lavish on as well.
Another day could have been wasted in inactive waiting, but Belle's mind was afire with what had been said and what was to occur. A thunder cloud of fears rained on her like a summer hurricane. She considered how Dathomir would react to her arrangement from all ends, starting with her deception with the spun gold and ending with her final damning act with the imp that produced an illegitimate babe. She could envision dozens of ugly scenarios that resulted in her death, her imprisonment or her banishment. She allowed a smidgen of hope for the chance that Dathomir might show understanding and level-headed conduct, and let her continue her life as his wife. Such a fanciful hope, though, and she lived in a time and a world where placing too much faith in such hopes could kill a person with disappointment.
At least she knew where she stood with Rumplestiltskin, for the most part. With their deal laid out in meticulous detail, she could sketch an outline of her future beyond Dathomir. Belle frankly couldn't care less if the king would let her visit her child. She would take on any obstacle that tried to stop her. And if she was thwarted, there was still the promise of a happy home and Rumplestiltskin's attentive presence. Well, so she requested. The imp was just as renowned for keeping his word as he was for bending the terms of an agreement to suit him. She checked her wording over again and could find nothing wanting. Maybe she should have specified how old the child would have to be before Rumplestiltskin retired from his duty, and clarified what "protecting" and "watching over" meant to her.
Yes, there was too much to think about. She could not avoid wondering about tonight, though. Her readings on married love - the marriage bed, that is - lent her a basic understanding of the mechanics. The first time would bring pain because of the ruptured hymen; after that things would be far more pleasant. She knew what went where, and what felt good for each of the sexes, although the women's section went vague at points. After ingesting a pamphlet on the subject, she inspected some romances for further guidance. The florid descriptions of multiple orgasms and trembling, throbbing body parts left her little more enlightened than before, if not just as confused. Remembering that particular literature made her smile; thinking on applying it to tonight's encounter wiped it away. It would not be like any erotic kidnapping or fortuitous encounter in an alcove those authors described. It would be real, grim and inescapable. In reading, Belle had the power to stop and set it aside for a while to take it in. There would be none of that here. And even worse, foolish as it was to admit, it would be a chore with no passion. Belle was hard-pressed to presume there was no affection in whatever she and Rumplestiltskin had. She liked him enough to put her hands on his clothed shoulders or chest. His skin intrigued her. His scent left her dizzy. She could never say, however, that she felt lust for him. The idea was still new to her. She understood the calmer forms of attraction, and what sort of men were considered handsome and worthy of desire. She'd even had her share of crushes. Mostly on tutors who spoke well and knew so much that boys her age frequently failed in holding her interest.
In a way, this was what her life was destined to be. She revolted at that idea after everything her mother taught her about deciding her own fate. Fate did depend on choice; it also stretched much further than any one person could picture. Maybe she had been fated to meet Rumplestiltskin. What about other things, though? Had it been her fate to lose her father? To be a king's milk cow for gold? A sorcerer's victim? But she could remember every decision she'd made that brought her here: her initial refusal, her offer of her mother's ring, her behavior toward Rumplestiltskin at every turn, for good and bad. And now she was here, ready to face another choice. It was more than many women of her station could say. Just a month ago she would have been married with minimal willingness to a respectable, predictable man of status who would impregnate and leave her to whatever devices she had for her entertainment. She was now about to bed a strange, frightening, aggravating, fascinating creature who could never bore her. She was also being threatened with marriage to a brutal despot. "Better" did not fit the scene in any way. It left her a wretch. And she was afraid of what tonight might bring - how it would change her. For it would alter her, no question. But as much as Belle dreamed of home and good things lost, an odd peace settled in her gut. Not happiness. Not security. She wouldn't be an innocent anymore, either. She understood all this, and still the sensation did not leave. Sometimes her fear and grief drowned it out, but it never abandoned her. It told her that she would survive this, whatever the king might say or do. It would have been nice to recall when this feeling first entered her and nestled inside like a helpful parasite.
Orange evening light pulled away like the tide and left blue-grey dusk in its wake. A warning itch teased her skin. Belle sucked in a breath and sat up to see the magic smoke dissolve at the other end of the dungeon. Rumplestiltskin, still covered in black dragonhide, emerged from it. She jumped up and faced him. Her ribs squeezed around her heart, and her heart punched back. "Good evening," she said.
"No need to be so formal," said the wizard. "But I think it will be a good evening."
She sighed. "If you say so."
He came to her and left less than an inch between them. She could not see him as clearly, but the darkness added shadows to his already harrowing face. On the other hand, it also smoothed out his skin's bumpy texture, and the stained teeth were less noticeable. She liked how the fading light fell on the outer rim of his soft hair. Too bad his hair would be the only soft part about him.
"You're the one who asked for this," he whispered. "Once we make the deal, there's no backing out of it. The other conditions will still hold if you change your mind about this."
How strange that he wasn't forcing himself on her already. She was willing (in the most technical sense), and he apparently did not have this opportunity as often as others. The gruff edge in his voice could hide only so much of his considerate intent.
"I understand." She tightened up to fight a barrage of shivers. "Just please be patient. This is all new to me."
Rumplestiltskin surprised her with his fingers under her chin, barely touching. His eyes - what she could see of them - were filling with a familiar intensity. She'd seen it when he was at the wheel. Not while spinning; it happened as she mopped the sweat from his head and neck. There was still a residue of incredulity. She was too nervous to guess what his other feelings were. Concentration wavered as he ran his nails and fingertips up her jaw. The feathery contact jolted her. It was all she could do to hold still and let him rest his hand on her cheek. Nothing else of their bodies touched. Not until he leaned down and kissed her.
She hadn't expected it until he looked at her mouth and started to move. Maybe from instinct, or maybe thanks to the pamphlet and romance novels, she leaned toward him, too. They met with a soft bump, making Belle flush, but neither of them minded. The kiss was closed, surface-deep, chaste by most standards. It sent a buzzing warmth through her head, neck and chest. Even her fingertips started to tingle. She liked the stillness of it, which was opposite to everything she would have to do later. But this was nice and gentle and fresh to her. She'd expected the imp's kiss to be as numbing as Gaston's. After they were betrothed, Gaston had asked permission to kiss her, which she granted out of curiosity. It had left her with little hope for an enjoyable consummation of their marriage afterward. His mouth on hers elicited no sparks, no excited sensations. It just felt strange. But Gaston had gone directly to kissing her with an open mouth. No transition from never being kissed to being assaulted by lips and tongue and teeth. How did anyone enjoy that?
This kiss, relatively innocent, did more to please and excite than any impassioned overture. She was afraid that even touching Rumplestiltskin elsewhere would interrupt it. It must have been boring to him, though, so she acquiesced when he pulled away, albeit slowly.
Belle kept her eyes closed as his other hand mirrored its twin on her other cheek. When she felt him cupping her face, she had a sense of being a little trapped. Her eyes opened. He was surveying her face with a nervous yet pressing look. Her pink cheeks and droopy eyelids must have told him enough. He kissed her again with a little more enthusiasm. He moved his lips against hers as though trying to pry them open. She was fine with the sucking and nipping until she opened some more for him and he pressed his tongue inside. Sudden memories of Gaston grabbing her face and holding her against a wall filled her mind. They ignited an explosion of panic. No, no! She didn't want this. Couldn't they go back to before?
She should have stopped then and there. Instead she dismissed her reluctance to get this over with. She was breathless figuring out how to keep up with his deep kissing and enjoy his intrusive tongue and clacking teeth. The happy warmth they'd shared was gone. This was nothing but yawning caverns and their blind, senseless occupants pushing against each other. She gasped gratefully when he let her go but cringed when he started kissing his way down her neck. Each kiss set off a sharp burst that her inexperienced body couldn't register as pleasurable. It was an attack on her senses. Worse still, her imagination decided to torment her with scenarios of Dathomir and Gaston doing the same thing. Taking pleasure from her body, ignorant of her distress. Why did this feel so awful? Why was she even thinking about them? The answer was a knife to the windpipe: she was their whore. Gaston might have been dead, or at least beyond contact, but she'd been promised to him for exactly this purpose. Now she gave herself to Rumplestiltskin to bear his child, and Dathomir would later take her, too. The same man who'd order her lashing a day ago and killed her father less than a week ago. All men she didn't want. All men who didn't really care for her. Her body and what it could offer was all the worth she possessed.
The poisonous thoughts came so fast and so forcefully Belle couldn't use reason to assuage them. Her body shook and she couldn't stop it. Not even after Rumplestiltskin stopped kissing her on the collarbone and asked what was wrong.
"I'm sorry," she said, wiping her bleary eyes. "I . . . I didn't think this would be so difficult."
Rumplestiltskin gave a breathy sigh. "Ah. Well, what else can you expect with someone like me?" He seemed to be talking to himself more than to her.
"It's not you." She took his hands. He'd moved back an inch and the space soothed her nerves a degree. She still trembled. "I told you, I've never done this before. And . . . I can't stop thinking about how I'm going to have to do it again for Dathomir." Her voice splintered into a sob. Tears were ready to come down from the rims of her eyelids.
Grasping her hands in turn, Rumplestiltskin brought them up. Slowly and firmly he rubbed circles into her palms. His long nails dug a little into the skin. She still found it comforting. "It's up to you. You have to decide."
This was for her child, she reminded herself. For the child's security. As incentive for Rumplestiltskin's protection. A child needs its parents. So Belle nodded and closed the gap. Rumplestiltskin let her hands free and ghosted his fingers up her arms and around her shoulders. Contrary to what she hoped, he went to her neck again, bestowing it with slow, succulent kisses. Now and then his lips or tongue pressed in the right spot; the pleasure only made it worse. The pleasure felt wrong this way. She should not enjoy something that left her shaking and ill at the same time. When he trailed his way back up to her jaw, she felt his mouth meet one of the tears that had dripped down her face. He stopped and regarded her again. His disturbed scowl shamed her.
"Just keep going," she said in a guttural tone. For once it was impossible to look him in the eye. She stared at his black vest and arm-coverings. Thick and tough. She envied them.
Rumplestiltksin went still except to turn his head to the side. His eyes flitted around. Belle held her breath for his verdict. To put an end to this farce, or to skip the pleasantries and take her against the wall.
He pointed to the straw clump. "Lie down."
Her stomach flopped, but she obeyed. She walked over and reclined on her back and, not knowing what to do with them, folded her hands over her stomach. Rumplestiltskin joined her. He lay on his side so he could lean over her a little. His hand gingerly pried hers apart and splayed itself across her abdomen. There was still a bodice, a blouse, a corset and a chemise between them, but the imp made no motion to remove them. He simply stroked her there. After a while her quakes subsided. She watched his hand. There was a timid thrill in the mismatch of his claws and the dragonhide sleeve against the blue cloth.
Being touched like this, no matter how tenderly, kept Belle's heart rate up and her breath rapid. She was no ignorant of his gaze drifting to her bosom as it rose and dropped. His eyes also caressed her neck and face. The unguarded attention - so new in its boldness - rekindled some of that nonthreatening warmth. She didn't quite mind so much that she was blushing madly, considering the situation.
Once she was otherwise calm, Rumplestiltskin slid his stroking hand over her waist and urged her to roll toward him. She obeyed again. Her nerves sparked as he pulled her close enough that their chests and knees touched.
"I didn't mind the kissing," she said quickly. "At the start. Just with our lips. That was . . . it was nice. Maybe if we . . ."
The little twitch of his head and the way he blinked and swallowed impressed on her that he hadn't wanted to do more than hold her for a time, now that they could be this close without driving her to tears. But he followed her suggestion. His nose brushed hers before their lips met. The effect was immediate. Her body relaxed to the point of melting. Her courage renewed, she looped her arm around his shoulder to hold him to her. It was ridiculous that this was the best she could do right now. If Rumplestiltskin minded, though, he didn't show it. His other arm wormed under her and pressed against her upper back. Before long his thumb was rubbing her shoulder blade and sending tickling sparks through her skin. Her unoccupied hand, nearly squished between them and the straw underneath, found a way into his hair and clung to his scalp. His smell surrounded her. The brininess of it became more potent, and with his leather clothing he smelled like an old library at the seaside, musty and forgotten but imbued with the invigorating presence of the ocean.
She started to worry when he pulled away and came back with a more open kiss, but it was only to seize more of her lips and tease them. Her mouth gradually accommodated him. They took turns sucking on each other's bottom lip. It introduced a new pleasing experience for Belle. With Gaston, lips seemed only good for rubbing together and anchoring mouths in place while tongues poked and prodded about. She'd never understood how nipping someone's lip or having her lip nibbled on could be arousing. It made her smile and almost giggle when she realized she liked it. Both of them opened their eyes when her lips accidentally withdrew because of the smile. Rumplestiltskin smiled back, and her belly fluttered.
The hand on her shoulder navigated into the sea of her hair, carefully scraping his nails against the nape of her neck. She shivered briefly, and not out of terror. They started sipping kisses. It tired Belle's lips more quickly than just pressing or sucking, but she had no inclination to stop. Her fingers delighted in the plated texture of the dragonhide and the downy feel of his hair, as his savored her tresses and the fine, durable material of her dress. There was no means of judging how much time passed. Eternity seemed a possible length of time to keep kissing and touching like this. But her lungs' and lips' limitations eventually persuaded Belle to rest, and she pulled back to breathe. Rumplestiltskin gasped to and stared with round eyes. Her heart still pounded away, murmuring a promise of all else she could learn from him once she got over her fears. The thrumming of his heart through his vest said the same to her.
Tonight, sadly, she did not want anything more. One milestone had been reached; to labor for the next six or seven would be too much. Breaking out of this embrace felt like a crime, and doing so to divest their clothes, even if they resumed this position, seemed a sacrilege. But there was the child to consider. The child had to come first. As they both caught their breath, Belle touched Rumplestiltskin's cheek. Its coarseness helped stir her from a kiss-drunk stupor.
"Thank you. I really liked that. I don't know if I'd enjoy the rest nearly as much, but . . . but I can still try."
Rumplestiltskin inhaled, as though to speak. After a second of holding it and pouring his eyes over her face, however, he released it through his nose. Belle giggled, close-mouthed, from his breath washing over her. The corner of the wizard's mouth quirked. His eyes didn't laugh, though. They were so full of things that would take her many more days, if not weeks or months, to separate out. If they could seal this deal, then she'd have those days to do so. Her chest brimmed with yearning. She nudged toward him and touched his nose with hers. In the same moment Rumplestiltskin's hand left her waist and his fingertips dragged up her cheek to her temple. When as their noses met, the wizard's lids flickered and his fingers paused. She had a feeling he wanted to kiss her again. He ought to. It might have given her the nerve to take things further.
"Belle . . ."
The name came in a quick puff of air, but lingered for so much longer. She tingled all over from it. Her lips parted to say something back.
Then his fingertips rested on her temple. "Good night, Belle."
She tried to ask him what he meant. A swallowing sleepiness thwarted her. Try as she might, she could not keep her eyes open. Her mind was pulled to some far off realm of unconsciousness. It happened too quickly to fight it.