She is not her.
Belle is unwell. That much has become quite clear to Rumplestiltskin in the short time since their reunion. Her imprisonment in continuous solitude at Regina's spiteful hands has rendered her once brilliant and adventures mind to dust; wayward and perpetually lost to the wind.
Though she tries to be as she once was—just as much as he tries to be patient and better for her—most of her days are spent speaking to inanimate objects scattered about the castle as if they are old friend newly reunited. She chats affectionately and laughs along with them for hours on end; the sight and sound of it polluted by a certain kind of madness.
One Rumplestiltskin is familiar with. It reminds him of an old friend.
Emma had been unabashedly fond of Jefferson—of his oddities and eccentric charm—though their acquaintance had been a brief but charged one during the final remnants of what was to be a lost and happier time in her life. Before the Dark One had irreversibly contracted it to be struck down and torn apart once and for all by a broken woman's petty revenge, and by his own greedy wants and desires for a girl too good for this world to begin with.
They had gone off and had themselves a tea party.
He'd happened upon the two of them lounging amongst the fields of his land one summer's day. As they each swallowed their last remaining drops of the spiced blend that was the former Mad Hatter's current favorite to entertain with. The madman drank it obsessively; enough so in his company for Rumplestiltskin to be familiar with it by scent alone.
"What have we here," he'd muttered to himself, perplexed at the sight of the pair of them together. He had felt the allure of her power nearby the moment he had reappeared in his study and so had immediately set out on locating her.
He did not expect to find Emma as she was.
Positively beaming where she sat, which was on a makeshift picnic blanket devised by tossing Jefferson's long coat onto the grass. Bright eyed with wonderment and laughter as she watched her strange companion balance their now empty teacups and saucers on a single spoon for her entertainment and amusement.
Rumplestiltskin approached noisily wanting to make his presence known but nonchalantly enough so as to not dampen the pleasant mood that was its current setting. Despite the unexpectedness of it, it was not an entirely disagreeable sight to see.
He caught Emma's attention first. She looked up at him. "I've just met your friend."
"I can see that," he said, eyeing said friend pointedly. Who opted to play coy.
"What are you doing here?" he asked him.
"I'm enjoying a lovely cup of tea in the company of the most enchanting lady I ever had the good fortune to stumble upon in your castle."
"That, I see too."
Emma grasped on to his dissatisfaction with the answer and elaborated further. "We came across one another in one of the hallways, both in search of you. Once we realized we weren't going to find you Jefferson suggested we come out here to enjoy the sunshine and have a drink while we waited for your return."
That's right. He hadn't been there. He had been off dealing with the Evil Queen. Having a long overdue chat about a dragon.
"Emma says you had an engagement set with her for today. Had you forgotten that we were to meet this afternoon to discuss some matters you needed my lucrative talents to attend to?" The other man questioned innocently, a tad too much so for his liking.
But before Rumplestiltskin could answer, admit that maybe he actually had forgotten. Emma piped in.
"Jefferson tells me he's a world traveler. That he helps you collect things that are difficult to come by."
"And the lovely Emma here has begrudgingly admitted to being an occasional student of yours."
Neither was a direct lie to the other, but it seems that the pair had intentionally left out the more sordid details of their own dealings and relationships with him. That was good. It meant they didn't trust each other.
"Yes, well, I'm back now." Rumplestiltskin said, feeling no need to interject an opinion on of their collective fabrications. He wanted to move on from this completely. "Looks like tea times over."
"A shame," Jefferson pouted at Emma who poorly suppressed a grin.
He took a deep breathe, a loud inhale through his nostrils. Two set of eyes directed their sights back over to him and realized his patience was weighing thin. Emma rose up to her feet first, dusting off her pants lightly. She stepped towards him, leaning in closely so only he could hear.
"I can't stay."
Rumplestiltskin nodded curtly. So she had merely come to collect today. His frustration with that is dully felt but not shown.
With a twist of his wrist he produced the small box to hand over but held off from letting go of it once she reached out and tried take it from him.
Her cheery mood promptly blackened; the implication of the gesture quite clear to her at this point in the game between them. He'd have his payment soon enough, the pointed and heated stare she gave in return assured him of that. His grip loosened acquiescently.
Emma jerked the box free, side stepping him to take her leave. But despite her frustration, she still turned back and bid her new acquaintance a fond farewell.
"It was really nice meeting you Jefferson. We should do this again sometime."
The man himself had risen to a stand and waved back his own goodbyes. Placing himself next to Rumplestiltskin as the pair watched the blonde disappear over the hillside.
Once she was gone, his own mood soured to the point of no return.
"Be mindful of your intentions with that one the next time you so conveniently run into her and ask her out for tea".
Rumplestiltskin warned ambiguously. "She is very dear and precious to me."
"Does she know that?" Jefferson snorted, giving him a lewd stare.
"Do you?"
"Would you like another?" Belle's sweet voice broached and permeates the memory, jolting him from his reverie.
She held up the old teapot she had come to affectionately refer to as Mrs. Potts to emphasize what she was purposing. Rumplestiltskin looked down sharply and was surprised to find his cup empty. Strange, he hadn't even realized he had downed its contents, so lost had he been in his own head; as mindless and careless as an old hatter.
"I couldn't help myself, old friend. Forgive and forget?"
He stares up acutely at the white porcelain Belle gripped in her hands, at its odd detailing and craftsmanship with its spiralling patterns and wildly bright colors. Remembering then who had given him that particular pot along with its entire set. The same ones, he realises, that the unlikely duo had found and used that day.
Rumplestiltskin smiles tightly but still kindly at the oblivious and beautiful blue-eyed girl sitting patiently across from him.
Shaking his head, he pushes the teacup away. "No, it's better I don't.
.
.
.
.
She is there; sometimes still.
He lies in bed for the novelty of it mostly.
And closes his eyes because even the allusion of falling into a dreamlike state of being is a pleasant one despite his inability to physically do so. He's come to long for it in the tedious and dull lapses in time during the emptier nights, to trick his mind into its persuasion; for the sensation, for that particular and soothing warmth that came with the awareness of having another body there by one's side.
What only a fantasy can remake and share anew.
Rumplestiltskin misses her, misses her endlessly. And without reprieve, not even the strong and near incessant pull of the golden threads he weaves these days can distract him from the billowing depths of it.
He wonders often if the Evil Queen has gone ahead and killed her.
But he is still very much that lowly coward and as such is too frightened to find out for certain.
So he's come to do this solitary and odd ritual as an active alternative to knowing the truth of what has become of her; settles his fretful body into the welcome obliviousness of the mattress with its soft embrace, rests his eyes purposefully against their need to seek out and see, all so he can pretend to make himself dream.
It's an old feeling that comes sweeping along with the notion being forced into the surface of his conscious mind.
Some nights, not so long ago, Rumplestiltskin would have spent hours and hours doing exactly this. Lying in bed next to her. Awake as she slept. Her warm breathe drawing along the column of his throat softly, soothingly, like the caresses she so hesitantly offered in her wakeful hours spent against him.
But this is different. It is unique, uncommonly felt.
The simplicity of it brings a momentary stillness from the raging storm of emotions he weathers through internally whenever she's within arms reach. He finds contentment here, in the mundane nature of it. It reminds him of a more modest time in his too long a life; when he was a common man, with a common wife, and a baby boy soon to be growing on the horizon. Before war had shattered that hopeful fool and had left nothing but a pitiful and desperate cripple in his place. But like this, feeling the airy flow of her breathing tickling his skin, he finds that he aches for it still, for that existence; for the better parts of the man that were perhaps capable of being a good husband and father.
Turning his head, Rumplestiltskin studies her sleeping face.
She appears to be at peace.
It is as much a comfort to see as it is a punishment to evoke.
A sleepy green eye flutters open, as if summoned by will back to life. The other following in its wake once she realizes he's watching her sleep again. Roused unexpectedly from her deep slumber she slowly raises her head and casually props it up on an elbow to look down on him drowsily from above.
"Why do you do it? Stay with me through the night like this?"
He tries to think of a kinder answer than the truth.
"To protect you, silly girl."
"From what?" she asked dubiously in return, but in good enough humor to play along with the mood he has set out to bring into this moment.
"From the monsters lurking underneath the bed, of course," he tells her with a sly quirk of his eyebrow. As if it is the most common of knowledge to know in all the realms on such matters.
She laughs, in a way. Counters astutely, "Oh I think the beast under there has long since crawled out and gotten me."
Rumplestiltskin smiles delicately at the well-aimed slight. Eager to touch her then, tug at one of the many stray strand of her blonde hair playfully before drawing his palm up further to rest it against the warm expense of her cheek; cradle it, urge her near to rest atop his chest, even if only for a single heartbeat of a second.
He doesn't though, finds he cannot break the spell of inaction that has locked itself within his bones.
So he tells her, "Only because I love you so."
"You silly monster," she mumbled as she shifts and slips away. Drops back down on the pillow to rest; reconciled with falling again into sleep. But not before she whispered knowingly.
"You're going to love me to death."
His throat tightens; she's succumbing quickly and is lost before he can speak up and rouse her once more. The intimate farce of a nightmare ends with a chocked sob tearing out from his throat.
Alone in bed Rumplestiltskin lies, as awake now to the world as he always is.
Openly, he weeps into its emptiness.
Author's Notes
Another update! With another longest chapter to date for another story!
The inspiration and writing have just been flying out of me this week. And I'm very pleased it has. The Tea Scene was a long time coming, I'm glad I was finally able to finish and post it. I hope you all enjoyed my minor Beauty & the Beast retcon with poor Belle. And that Jefferson popped up :) I also think I've figured out my endgame for this story. Which is awesome as its really developed and expanded beyond what I initially thought it would be.
Thanks for reading Xoxox