Part 13

Her hands are on his chest and her head is on his shoulder. She snuggles against him, increasingly savoring his nearness instead of getting used to it.

That's why it takes her quite some time to notice that their current embrace gives her an accidental view on the items which are still lying on the small table next to the seats they are sitting on. She focuses on the shards of the cup which are on the bottom of the pile which has basically grown there.

It seems strange now, that those little pieces of china filled her with such dread before. Still, she has far from forgotten that they are part of the cup which he forced her to look at, to focus on, whatever that means. Later, she felt awfully guilty for losing control over herself and smashing the cup in the hope that he would finally leave her alone.

She can't help but smile a little as she looks at those bits of porcelain now. If it weren't for those shards, she wouldn't be sitting here now with him.

"Can you use magic to repair the cup?"

She only realizes that she has spoken the question out loud when he makes a sound of confirmation.

"Just a simple spell would do the trick."

"Then why don't you?"

She breaks away from him a little, looking at him in confusion. He was devastated when she broke the cup, understandably so. After all, she herself ended up being feeling awful because of that small, fragile thing, and she is the one who has no memories of that cup whatsoever.

"For me, it's not about the cup itself. It's about what it represents."

"What does it represent?"

"Our love."

He speaks with utmost certainty, but she isn't following him.

"What do you mean?"

It's not that she doesn't believe that the cup can symbolize their relationship; it's just that she has difficulty picturing how the seemingly mundane object can be so strongly related to their feelings for one another.

"Maybe I put it a bit strongly," he replies, giving her an apologetic shrug, "but that's the way I see it."

"Can you tell me about it?"

Much as she'd like to hear about the cup itself, she's also very eager to learn more of their past in general.

"If you want to, yes," he says, regarding her closely. He doesn't look as conflicted as she expected him to be; it's truly as if his only requirement for telling her is that she requests him to do so.

"I'd like to hear about the cup. I know you said something about it when you visited me a few days ago, but..."

"It wasn't quite the right moment," he says, sighing. "I can't apologize enough for..."

"It's all right, really," she says, interrupting him quickly. "Both of us were wrong, and both of us were upset. We can't blame ourselves for that, especially not now that things are turning out fine after all."

"Indeed," he mutters, sounding relieved. "Please allow me to start over, and tell you properly this time. From the very beginning."

"I'm all ears."

She settles herself, making herself comfortable at his side, her head still on his shoulder.

"I must admit that I can't remember how the cup ended up in my possession," he says, looking past her at the shards. "But it was the one that you picked out to serve me my tea in during your first day at work in my castle."

It's funny, in a way which isn't humoring at all, how the notion of working for him in his castle, being his caretaker, confused and terrified her so very much just a few days ago. It's not as if she has any actual evidence now that what he says is true, but it has become an accepted fact to her anyway. For when he looks at her like this, solemn and loving and hopeful, the words he is telling her are all the proof she needs.

"I... I didn't know you yet like I would get to know you. I didn't know you at all. When I... bargained for you, I was impressed by your strength, your independency. But I didn't expect that you would endure in the Dark Castle, working as my servant for all intends and purposes."

He stares off into the distance for a moment, the past so very far and yet only a memory away.

"I wasn't kind. To either of us. I longed for companionship, just someone to talk to... someone who might speak back. At the same time, I knew exactly who I was... what I was. What I am. Driving anyone away, driving you away... it's in my nature, Belle. Or rather, what's left of it."

She wants to disagree, to point out that what he's doing now is anything but driving her away, but she remains quiet for now. She'd prefer hearing the whole story before daring to speculate on the character of this unusual man.

"When you were serving my tea that very first time, I made a cruel joke. It was just an attempt to startle you... to see what you would do. I expected you to... well, to cry. But you didn't. You only dropped the teacup. If it weren't for that, I might have thought you hadn't heard me at all. When you picked up the cup, you discovered that it was chipped. You apologized, arguing that you could barely see the damage. You were more worried about the cup itself than my reaction. It was... intriguing."

He has already told her this, in so many words. In fact, this is actually the third time that he is telling her. But she's glad that he does, for he tells her new things each time, allowing her to gradually expand her knowledge and understanding of their past.

"I began using the cup, at first more out of habit than anything else. And when you ended up joining me for tea every day, it became some sort of joke between us."

He smiles a little, clearly having very good memories of the times they had tea together. Of course, she wishes that she were able to remember as well. But whereas hearing about it like this isn't quite the same thing, it suffices for now, his smile telling her most of what she wants to know.

"But when you eventually kissed me, when I thought you had betrayed me... I was... upset."

She squeezes his knee in encouragement, very much aware how difficult it is for him to think back on this, not to mention to narrate the events which he regrets so very much.

"I was upset and angry and... hurt when I thought that you had purposefully made me believe that you could love me, that none of it had been genuine. I smashed things. Quite a lot of things. Including the teaset on the table. I wanted to destroy every last piece of it, but when I took our cup and saw the chip... I just couldn't do it."

Sensing that there's still something inside of him which can't quite believe that she wanted - wants - nothing rather than being with him, she squeezes him more tightly. There's a brief wince of discomfort on his face, but she doesn't let go, not until he covers his hand with her own and smiles uncertainly at her, indicating that he understands why she does this.

"Since the day I threw you out, I readied the remaining items of the teaset each afternoon, hoping that you would come back and that we could have tea like we used to. But you didn't come back and I didn't use the cup again. When Regina came to me to tell me that you had died, I believed that the cup was the only thing I had left of you."

This time, her touch is as gentle as it can be when she caresses his knee, by now knowing that her comfort makes this easier for him. Then again, she has the feeling that it will never get any less difficult for him to think of the long time in which he had believed her to be dead because of Regina's lie.

"The cup become one of my most cherished possessions. I placed it in the main hall of my castle, on the largest pedestal. It was painful just to look at it... because it reminded me that I had lost you and that you had suffered so much because of me. But it also made it impossible for me to forget - to deny - that we had shared happy days together. Just a handful of them, or so it seems, but..."

He shakes his head again, his pained expression implying that the happy moments they shared barely outweigh the pain of their separation. She wants to address that, explicitly, but this too doesn't seem to be the right moment.

"The curse which brought us to this world also transported many things from the Enchanted Forest to here. The cup was one of them. Not that I knew it, at the time, of course. My memories were gone as well. Just like everyone, except for Regina, we had fake memories which made us believe that we truly belonged in this world."

This information is interesting to her in a whole different way. She makes a mental note to ask about this later, for now pleased to find out that she's in perfect control of the ever growing list of topics for later conversation in the back of her mind.

"I kept the cup in my house. I still didn't use it, although I didn't know why at the time, but I found it soothing to have it near me. All I remembered then, or thought to remember I should say, is that I was a lonely pawnbroker who fell in love with his housekeeper. She supposedly died in a suspicious car crash very shortly after we admitted our feelings to one another."

She never thought that one could have too many memories, but she realizes now that being haunted by memories wherever you go, ones that aren't necessarily entirely truthful, is probably just as unpleasant as having no memories whatsoever.

"One day, I had a... disagreement with your father. I had regained my memories by then and I knew who he was, and which role he had played in your fate... according to Regina, at least. Based on that false information, I might have treated him... unfairly."

She doesn't know why he starts talking about her father now, especially since he barely did so all this time before, and she listens only more closely.

"My house was robbed the same day. There was no questioning the identity of the perpetrator. Miss Swann, the Sheriff, retrieved all objects which he had taken... except for one."

"The cup," she says quietly, understanding now where he is going with this. But that's about where the clarity ends for as far as she is concerned, the things he implies about her father thoroughly shocking her. She doesn't know her father – or rather, she doesn't remember him – and neither is she aware of what exactly went on between him and the man opposite her, but for the man who raised her to steal...

"Indeed. I located your father, but he didn't have the cup. But I wanted... I needed it back. He wouldn't tell me where it was. I'm not proud of this and I would have preferred to keep this from you for as long as possible, hopefully forever, but..."

"Honesty," she fills in, recalling exactly what they talked about earlier that evening. From now on, they're going to be honest to one another, about everything. Even - especially - about the most difficult things.

"I hurt him, Belle. I hurt your father. I didn't mean to lose control, but... it wasn't only about that cup anymore when I was beating him. I believed that you wouldn't have been dead if it weren't for him. All I could think of is how he rejected you, how he had you tortured. Or at least, that's what I thought, because of what Regina had told me."

"Rumple, I..."

His eyes are pleading for forgiveness, for understanding at least, but her mind is spinning with what he is telling her.

"Do you want to talk about this another time?" he asks, sounding more hopeful than anything else.

"Yes, please," she says, grateful for the opportunity to stop talking about this most confusing and terrifying topic. And, just as importantly, for his implicit promise not to conveniently forget about it, but to continue the conversation at a better time.

"Of course, sweetheart. I'm sorry. This was probably too much to talk about yet, but..."

"But what?"

"It feels good, Belle."

He dares a quick glance at her, then lowers his gaze, his hair moving to cover his face again.

"To talk to you. To finally tell you everything. It feels... good."

There's a lump in her throat when it dawns on her that she apparently never knew this about him and her father before, not even when she had all her memories... that, in a way, he trusts her more than the woman who she is supposed to be.

"You'll always be able to tell me anything you want, Rumple. That won't change after tonight. I don't want you to feel pressured to tell me everything you want me to know right now."

She wouldn't have thought it possible before, but she's beginning to see that there can also be too much knowledge of her past, especially if there are revelations which she wasn't aware of even before her memories were taken from her.

"I appreciate that very much. I would truly like to talk with you about this at a better time."

She finds herself imagining doing just that. She can already see herself like that, spending long nights curled up at his side, just talking. They would be somewhere nice and quiet, perhaps even underneath a starlit sky...

Given the hope that's written all over his face, she isn't the only one with such desires, such expectation, for the near future.