Part 22
"Do you have any good memories of me wearing this nightgown?" she asks quietly, breaking the heavy silence that has fallen.
He still looks at her like he did when she just came out of the bathroom while wearing the nightgown he gave her, his expression suggesting that he can barely believe what he's seeing.
Conversation came so easy to them before, but now that she has stepped out wearing this particular gown he seems to have run out of things to say. By referring back to their former life together she hopes to get him to talk again, simply because she enjoys conversing with him so very much.
But more than that, she is both slightly nervous and beyond intrigued by the smothering glance he just cast at her. She already knows just how very close the two of them were emotionally, but by now she's beginning to wonder for the first time just how much they experienced together physically.
Her question might lead him to reveal something about the more... carnal aspects of their relationship. She wouldn't dare ask him whether he has good memories of her not wearing the gown - of him slowly pulling it off her, caressing each area of skin he reveals - not yet, anyway. But this way, she might get him to give some insight into the physical aspect of their relationship without acutely mortifying either of them.
"I've never actually seen you wearing it before," he says, focusing his gaze firmly on her modestly covered knees.
"You didn't?"
Every time she thinks to be able to conclude something from their shared past, she turns out to be wrong. It might have frustrated her, but it doesn't nearly as much as she might have thought before she got to know him again. It's a joy for her to find out more and more about their relationship, the truth she uncovers usually yet better than the assumptions she made.
At the same time, she is baffled to find that he has never seen her in her nightclothes - not these, at least. They have been together for quite some time, she knows that now, and they were in love. There seems to be a large difference between what he has told her before and what he is telling her now... and what she is feeling herself.
"When you lived in my castle, you wore this gown to sleep in, in your bedchamber," he says, offering the explanation her expression no doubt shows she wishes for. "I was never there, so I never saw you wearing it."
"What about this world?" she asks, something which she might describe as regret welling up inside of her as it dawns on her what exactly he is telling her, what she can read between the lines.
Whatever the reasons might have been, it seems that they never stayed together at night in the other world. Whether that wouldn't have been acceptable in that world or not, she wouldn't ever want to be separated from him, especially not in the dark of night.
It saddens her greatly that they didn't share this sort of nearness in the past, but he smiles before the fear develops that it has been exactly the same in the world where they are now.
"I couldn't bear to let you out of my sight when you came back to me here. I stayed with you at night, sweetheart. You wouldn't have it any other way."
She sighs a little in relief, very glad that they stayed together at night in this world at least, that she herself had insisted upon it.
The effect is gone however when she recalls just how little time they got to spent together in this world to begin with. Similarly, she barely dares consider what it must have been like for him to mostly stay away from her during the past few days, hearing how difficult it already was for him to be separated from her when she was both mentally and physically in good health.
"Watching you sleep next to me on your bed... those are some of my most precious memories."
Maybe she should feel better at hearing how much it meant to him to be with her at night, but the way he describes these cherished moments only increases her concern. She doesn't need to ask in order to know that he would only come into the room, not to mention onto the bed, when he was ensured that she was covered by blankets.
"Are you uncomfortable with that, Belle? Do you regret we did that? That I did that?" His eyes pleading with her, she grasps for something to say, anything to persuade him that she isn't upset... or at least, not for the reason he thinks. The realization that he jumped to this conclusion after only the briefest moments of silence from her isn't helping in the slightest. "Nothing happened beyond that. I didn't touch you... I stayed on top of the covers. I knew that there would come a day that you would regret it if we..."
She has never imagined herself kissing someone just to shut them up, to attempt to make an end to their doubt that way. But if it weren't for her determination for their first kiss to be one of nothing but love and affection, she would do so right now.
"One day, you are going to hold me when we sleep, both of us in bed... in our bed," she says, his shocked yet ever so hopeful expression making very clear to her that all her unpleasant assumptions are as true as she feared them to be. "Right now, I only want to know why we haven't been doing so all along."
The more she learns of their relationship, or by now almost more so the lack thereof, the more confused she becomes. The sooner he can explain to her why they weren't truly together, the quicker they might be able to actually achieve exactly that after all.
"You... it wouldn't have been right, sweetheart. You were just freed from the hospital. There was so much you had to get used to in this world. Even I was so much different than I was in our world... the way I looked, even. I wanted you to get used to all that before..."
He trails off, shaking his head, avoiding her gaze. Much as it pains her to see it, it doesn't surprise her any longer that he's still denying some parts of their past relationship towards himself.
But this time, he doesn't need her interruption to make an attempt at sharing something more closely resembling the truth with her.
"I wouldn't have been able to help myself," he cries out, his voice raising, suddenly harsh. The rest of his body joins his arms as he makes a gesture of helplessness. "To be in bed with you, to reach out for you and touch you... I'm a weak man, Belle. I'm stronger when I'm with you, because you make me want to be the best I can be, but..."
He shakes his head again, as if the strength she gives him isn't nearly enough.
"But I'm not as good as you'd like me to be. You never wanted to believe it... I didn't want to believe it. But I can't pretend to be anything that I'm not... not with you. I can't act like I can be the man who you might deserve."
"That's not true, and you know it."
She has never seen a wounded animal, trapped in a corner. Not for as far as she knows, at least. But watching him like this, it isn't difficult at all to imagine what such a terrified, desperate creature might be like.
"It's... not entirely true. But believe me, sweetheart, being so near to you would have led me to... want things. Things that neither of us are ready for."
If nothing else, the way he keeps his distance from her, even now, furthers her belief that he would never do anything against her will.
Either way, she knows that it's not his fear of taking their relationship too far which kept him away from her at night.
"If it's not entirely true, as you say, then what was it? Why didn't you come into bed with me? Why didn't you just hold me?"
She would really, really like to ask him as well what made him so utterly convinced that his touch wasn't welcome, whether she herself had given any indication of that, or whether that too was more based on the fears in his mind than the realities of their true lives.
But she can't fight two battles at a time. Just as has been the case in most of their conversation so far, she focuses on what seems most important to her, pressing as gently and carefully as she can to reveal to both of them why he didn't seek her nearness at night when the two of them had the chance to do so.
He doesn't reply for a long time, just keeps his gaze away from hers, his fists clenched at his sides. It might look like he doesn't plan to answer her, but she can see the struggle that his body only barely betrays.
"Because I am afraid," he says at length, looking up to meet her eyes at last. "Because I'm terrified that you don't want me to touch you. That I'll make you uncomfortable. I can't bear you moving away from my touch. Or worse, for you to be afraid to tell me that you don't want me to touch you... that you don't want me. Frightening you again... I can't live with that."
"So you'd rather not touch me at all."
He nods, almost as miserable as he was when she joined him with the shards of the by now repaired cup. It seems like a lifetime ago.
He doesn't break his gaze away from her, allowing her to see how difficult it is for him to tell her this, to openly express how afraid he was to seek her nearness. Maybe, it's the first time that he has admitted this to himself as well.
"I don't want it to be like that any longer," she says, approaching him to close the physical distance that has been growing between them. "If anything doesn't feel right, we shouldn't try to do it anyway. But I think that we should talk about it, until it does feel right. We probably shouldn't stop talking even then."
It's hardly the first time she has told him something along those lines this night, but it does seem more true now that both of them are standing here like this. For the first time this evening, they are in a situation somewhat resembling ones they experienced in the past, when they were together but at the same time so very far away from one another.
"Look at me, Rumple," she breathes, sensing that he has done anything but that when they were in bed before - or on the bed, in his case. She briefly wonders if he ever has.
After a delightfully short moment, he does just that after all. For once, maybe for the very first time, he allows his gaze to wander over her. She can't imagine that she hasn't wanted this all along.
Ignoring her heart as it pointedly proves that it can still beat a whole lot faster than it's already been doing, she focuses all her attention on his eyes and the way they slowly take her in - all of her this time.
Her breath quickens whenever he lingers, when his tongue darts out to briefly lick his lips. She wonders whether they are as dry as hers are - and how they would feel against hers.
She asks herself too what he sees when he looks at her like this, how much his perception of her differs from the way she sees herself. Whereas she has seen a healthy and increasingly happy if unimpressive and unremarkable woman in the mirror's reflection, he clearly sees a whole lot more than that.
The redness on his cheeks mimics her own and his breathing grows rougher along with hers, his suddenly heated gaze wonderfully heavy on her. She simply can't begin to imagine why he didn't want to do this before.
Then again, it's hard to properly think at all when he admires her like this, swallowing with obvious difficulty. She dismisses the question what it would be like if his hands were to join his gaze, if only because she wouldn't be surprised if such thoughts would prevent her from functioning altogether.
"You... you are yet more beautiful than I believed," he says, hopeful yet wary, as if he expects her to disapprove of his opinion of her.
His voice is all rough again and she doesn't even bother to try to verbally reply to him, fearing that hers will be unintelligible. Undeserved as she feels that the very generous compliment is, she wants to make as clear to him as she can that he should never, ever be afraid to say such things to her.
Luckily, she doesn't need any words to tell him how much it means to her that he's telling her this, how much she enjoys his appreciation of her presence. She hangs the coat which she is still carrying over the edge of the magnificent bed he conjured for her, wanting to have both of her hands free.
Reaching out for him again, she puts both her hands on his upper arms. Savoring the tense muscles she can feel underneath the ever so soft and warm material of his jacket, she strokes him from his elbows to his shoulders.
She has been looking intently at him from the moment she found him sitting all on his own in the hallway, his face buried in his hands. All of her attention has been focused on him, every detail committed to memory. She wanted to make as certain as she could that she would remember him, even if she were to never see this wonderful man again. More than that, she wanted to study him in an attempt to make up for all the things about him that she can't remember any longer.
The better she got to know him throughout the evening, the more she began to appreciate the way he looks. It's not just those soft, ever so deep eyes that captured her attention first; she has also very quickly grown to adore the curve of his lips, the shape of his nose, the hints of gray in his hair.
But what she sees now goes beyond that. She wouldn't be able to define what particular part of him causes her to think so, but she finds the whole of him appealing in a way she didn't before.
There's an ever growing urge within her to run her hands through his hair in a way that has nothing to do with soothing him. She wants to smell him, to breathe him in, and not any longer because his scent is so much nicer than all others she has ever known.
She wants to touch him, just because she wants to and because she can.
But more than anything else, she desires to find out what it's like to kiss him, properly, without fear and confusion.