Part 24
Her eyes flying open, bewilderment washes over her when she finds herself brushing her mouth against something other than the lips of her True Love.
For the briefest of moments she fears that something has come between them yet again, that there's magic of sorts separating them from one another even now.
But when she can eventually focus on anything but the kiss she was expecting, she finds that her lips are pressing against his fingers, his hand effectively preventing her from kissing his mouth.
"What..."
She can only stare at him, wide-eyed, not understanding in the slightest what is happening, let alone why he is doing this.
After everything they have shared tonight, she is convinced that this is exactly what both of them want. He craves this kiss as much as she does; he might not have said so in words, but everything else about him most certainly has.
And yet, here they are, once again not finally kissing one another after all.
"This isn't right, sweetheart."
Her gaze going wildly over his face, she looks for anything that can perhaps make her understand, that might explain why he is preventing her from kissing him.
He still maintains the boundary between them, making his intentions - or rather, his lack thereof – more than clear. But she can't bring herself to move away from him, to put any more distance between the two of them.
His own gaze is lowered, and so is his head, his hair shielding his face from her once more. Really, she thought that they were beyond this, that he wouldn't be afraid any longer to show her how he is truly feeling.
"I... I don't think we should be trying this. Not tonight."
Her mouth falls open when it dawns on her what he's saying... what he thinks she meant to do when she leaned in to him, fully intent on kissing him.
"Sweetheart, I know that you want your memories back. I want the same thing for you, for us. But I don't... I don't think this is the right moment to try. It's so very soon. I don't want you to be... disappointed."
"You think I did that only because I wanted to try to restore my memories by kissing you?!"
He nods, still not looking at her, as if he can't possibly think of any other reason why she might want to kiss him.
It really seems that, much as she dislikes it, she won't be able to take away his uncertainties by sheer force of will. She can show him how much she cares for him - how much she can love him - for all she is worth; but whatever has caused his soul-deep doubts, it's increasingly clear to her that she can't take them away in a single evening.
She has no idea how much time it would take for him to accept more easily that she genuinely wants to be with him, that she wants to kiss him for reasons that have nothing to do with regaining her memories. But no matter how long that might take, she wants to remind him of her love whenever she can.
So instead of withdrawing from him like he seems to expect now that her attempt to kiss him has led to nothing, she moves closer to him again. Taking his hands in her own, she brings them back to her sides, feeling better already as soon as his palms rest ever so lightly on her waist.
"I do want my memories back," she says, cradling his face in her hands and brushing her thumbs along his cheek, his stubble wonderfully noticeable under her skin. "But that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy anything in the mean time. That I don't want anything."
She's very pleased when he meets her eyes again, his breathing deliciously harsh once more. His moods of unabashed longing can end so quickly, but it's a delight indeed that she appears to be rather good at quickly getting him back in such a state.
"It doesn't mean that I don't want you."
If it weren't for his ever tantalizing nearness, she might have jumped in triumph when he rests his forehead against her own and tightens his hold on her.
"I just don't want to disappoint you, sweetheart."
He has already said something along that line, but now he isn't talking about the chance that their kiss won't bring back her memories. Still, it's worse yet when he practically tells her that he believes that she won't enjoy being kissed by him.
"I don't think you will," she breathes.
Much as she'd like to kiss him after all right there and then, she doesn't do so. The whole act seems a lot more difficult and less natural now that she's thinking about it so much. But more than that, she doesn't want to rush ahead of him again, causing him to jump to wrong conclusions, misguided as they might be.
"It's not that I don't want to, Belle. I most definitely do. Please know that. And I dare to believe now that you want to as well."
"What's stopping you then?" she asks, her heart leaping with joy at his declaration.
One hand still caressing his face and the other finding its way back into his ever so soft hair, their noses touching, talking rather than enjoying the planned alternative isn't nearly as frustrating as it could have been.
"Because I'm afraid of what might happen if we kiss again... of what might not happen."
"You think that the kiss won't give me back my memories," she mutters, a particularly gentle caress of his telling her that at least he isn't afraid right now that she won't like kissing him.
Aware of the increasing tension within him, of how difficult it must be for him to share this particular fear with her, she pointedly responds to the gesture. Her fingers blindly find their way back to his nape, scratching him ever so slightly in the way that has him groaning quietly.
More feeling than hearing the sound that originates so very near her, there is indeed no mistaking his willingness to be so close to her, to touch her and to be touched by her in return.
She has already sensed that it's hard for him to communicate like this, to be so open about his innermost thoughts and feelings. But as he angles his head and rubs his nose against her throat in a display of utter need, inhaling deeply, it dawns on her that this is difficult for him in a whole other way as well.
Preventing her from kissing him seemed like the easy choice for him when she presumed that he was only afraid of the outcome of such a gesture of affection. But now that she learns that he truly wants to kiss her as badly as she does him, she wonders how he managed to stop her in the first place.
"I'm afraid that the kiss won't return your memories, yes," he says, the words barely audible due to the softness of his voice and the close proximity of his mouth to the skin of her throat, to the way he gasps at the slightest change in pressure of her fingers against his scalp. "So much has changed. The most for you, of course, but for me as well. Just talking with you like this... I couldn't have imagined that. You've tried to let me be a better man for almost as long as we've known each other. But tonight... tonight I feel for the first time that maybe I can truly be the man who you deserve."
Glad as she is to hear that he believes that he can be a better man, she doesn't immediately understand what he is referring to, not seeing how the changes both of them have gone through have anything to do with the effects of True Love's Kiss.
"Maybe neither of us are who we were a day ago. And maybe..."
He has that look in his eyes, the very one which means that he wants to withdraw from her in every sense of the word, that he's afraid of what he has to say. But unlike before, he doesn't look away from her, doesn't increase the distance between them with even an inch.
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe it's not so bad after all."
"What do you mean?" she asks, for the first time since quite a while not understanding what he's telling her.
"Both of us aren't quite who we used to be when the kiss did have its effect. But maybe it's not necessarily a bad thing if True Love's kiss wouldn't work for us for now."
He does lower his head then after all. But he doesn't let go of her, almost impossibly tender fingertips on the small of her back telling her of the hope that he can't communicate with words.
"You think that our kiss would be a disappointment anyway, whether it brings back my memories or not," she reasons, drawing her conclusion.
He nods apologetically.
"If the kiss doesn't bring back my memories," she says, trying to follow his argumentation, "it means that our love isn't true."
She wrinkles her nose at that. The more she considers it, the less she likes the notion that a kiss can determine whether love is true or not.
"But if it does work and I do remember..."
His fingers remain on her lower back, but they aren't moving any longer. It strengthens her belief that there's something he fears even if their kiss were to restore her memories.
When she first learned that she has a whole life that she can't remember, she would have given a lot to be able to recall it, let alone get back to it. She couldn't have imagined that there would be reasons for her not to go right back to where she was forced to forget. After all, it was almost as if she stopped living then, being unable to remember anything but a lifetime in a basement cell.
But she has found out throughout the evening that her past life wasn't nearly as ideal as she would have believed - and that her relationship with him wasn't quite perfect either. But right now, between her memory loss and his almost paralyzing fear of losing her forever... she's happy, and she's rather certain that her True Love is as well.
"You think that I won't want to be with you any longer if I am able to remember our past."
He nods again, yet more miserably than the previous time he did so. It confirms to her that he, just like her, never had expected that being like this, confused and afraid but together, could be better than being aware and secure but apart.
Her heart aches at his implied conviction that the return of her memories would make an end to what has started to blossom between them throughout the evening.
"I can't speak for who I used to be. For who I should be," she says firmly, needing to make him see how wrong she thinks he is about this. "But the way I see it... with or without my memories, I think I feel the same way about you, Rumple."
He stares at her, disbelieving and yet more hopeful than she has seen him so far.
"Whatever we have now... I think it's beautiful. I don't know exactly what we used to have, only that it probably wasn't like this. But this... this is lovely, very lovely, in its own way."
"Yes. Being with you like this... it's wonderful. I don't want that to change. But I think that it will if we kiss, whether your memories return or not. I'd like to be able to think of only this when I think back on this night."
"I understand," she says, nodding. She may not entirely agree with him, not believing that the return of her memories would change anything about the way she has grown to see her True Love, but she shares his opinion that it would be a joy to, for just once, have nothing but increasingly good moments. "So you'd like to keep it at this, for tonight at least?"
"I'd like that very much, yes," he says, finally relaxing a little again, his relief almost tangible. "And you?"
"I'd like it as well. I don't think that the aftermath of our kiss would be a bad one either way, but I enjoy this very much as well. Just talking, and... touching in other ways."
Warmth rises to her cheeks when she recalls just how much the caresses they have shared so far already impacted her. Really, if they were to expand the intimacy they've shared this evening to something slightly less chaste... she isn't certain at all whether she would be able to take that.
It wouldn't surprise her if she were to faint in his arms if he were to make her feel any more flushed and hot than he already did, apparently wholly on accident. But she wouldn't care all that much even if she did, because she knows for certain that her True Love would catch her, coaxing her back to consciousness with the same gentleness and patience he has shown all evening.
"No kiss then, tonight?" he asks, bringing her attention back to the present.
"No kisses tonight," she confirms, despite the solemness of the agreement giving in to the urge to remind him that she would prefer to kiss him a great many times rather than just once.
He looks equally relieved and frustrated to have come up with this measure, but there's no hesitance when he reaches for her. She happily locks her arms around his neck when he pulls her against him.
Burrowing her face into his chest with a contented sigh, she takes courage from the fact that he has at least become certain enough to embrace her like this.
When he rocks both of them ever so slightly, humming quietly into her ear, any disappointment she felt fades quickly. Experiencing this comfort and peace together, this utter security, means more to her than anything else.