Title: Of Dreams and Awakenings
Rating: T
Word count: ~51k
Characters: Belle/Isabelle French, Mr Gold/Rumplestiltskin, Mary Margaret, Emma Swan, Archie Hopper, Henry Mills, Regina Mills, Moe French, various other Storybrooke characters.
Pairing: Belle/Rumplstiltskin (Isabelle/Mr Gold)
Disclaimer: Anything you recognise from 'Once Upon A Time' does not belong to me.
It's quarter to noon, and Isabelle is just finishing re-shelving some returned books when he arrives. She doesn't see him at first, just hears the door opening and then closing again a moment later.
"We're closing soon," she calls out. "Do you need help finding anything?" She comes around a bookshelf, finds herself face to face with Moe French. She feels ice down her spine, feels made of spun sugar or blown glass, feels like she's going to shatter into a hundred different pieces.
It has been fifteen weeks, three days and a handful of hours since Isabelle last saw her father. She thinks now it could be fifteen years and it would be too soon.
"Isabelle," he says, and she shivers, takes a step back.
"What do you want?" she asks, her voice a hoarse whisper, sandpaper and rough edges. She clears her throat, wraps her cardigan tightly around herself. "What – what do you want?" she asks again.
"I wanted to see you," says Moe, and he's all pain and misery, all heart-break and remorse, but Isabelle can't stomach it.
"I don't want to see you," she says. Moe stretches out a hand to her, and she flinches. For the first time in a while she feels the urge to run, to hide. But she can't – she's the librarian, she has to stay here until midday and then lock up. It's her job, her responsibility. She can't leave just because…just because she's afraid.
She can't. She mustn't.
"Izzy," says Moe helplessly, and she hugs herself, shakes her head.
"Nobody calls me that," she says. Curt, crisp, because she has no interest in being even a little polite to this man. Not after what he did to her. "I'm busy," she says. "And I have nothing to say to you." She turns away, gains some measure of escape by putting her desk between them.
"Izzy, I just want to talk," says Moe French, and he follows her but has the good sense not to step too close, to stay on the other side of the desk. "I haven't seen you in three months – I just want to talk to you."
"You didn't come to see me for ten years!" Isabelle snaps, and takes a moment to control her breathing, scrambles to control her feelings as well. She turns her back on him, can't bear to look at him. To see the face of the man who'd betrayed her so completely, hurt her so badly.
"Izzy – Isabelle," he corrects himself. "Please. I know…I know I've made mistakes, but I'm your father, surely I deserve –"
"Deserve?" Isabelle whirls around, stares at him. "Do you really want to talk about what you deserve?" They look at each other, father and daughter, and Isabelle sees how he's lost weight, sees the signs of stress and worry on his face. She wonders if it's because of her, and wonders if she cares.
"Izzy, I had no choice," says her father, and it's clear he's agonised, but his agony can't erase ten years, can't restore her to what she would have been if she hadn't spent a decade locked in a psychiatric ward unnecessarily.
"No, I had no choice," she spits at him, anger rising hot in her throat, and she thinks anger's better than fear, thinks it's safer. "I had no choice when you let them take me away and lock me up! Do you have any idea what they did to me in there?"
"Izzy –"
"Don't call me that!" she shouts, and Moe nods, holds up his hands as if to show he's harmless. But he's not, she thinks. He might look it, might look like a defeated man, but he's anything but harmless to her.
"Isabelle," he says. "Isabelle, please. I just…I just want to talk to you."
"No," she says flatly. She's shaking, her hands trembling at her sides, her breath short and choked. "No."
"Now, Miss French, I'm sure you don't really mean that."
Isabelle freezes; she feels like she can't breathe. To be faced with one of the people who put her in the hospital is bad enough, but both of them together…
Brave, she tells herself. She wills herself to be brave. Archie has promised she'll be safe, and so has Emma, and Mr Gold's fierce, determined words must give her strength.
"Mayor Mills," she says, licks dry lips. "I'm sorry, I don't see how it's actually any of your business."
Regina Mills steps through the door, comes into the library, saunters up to the desk. "The welfare of this town is my business," she says, sour lemons beneath her smile, danger in her eyes. Isabelle takes a step backwards, finds herself up against the re-shelving trolley. "That includes the people in it, which obviously includes your father," Regina continues. "I'm concerned that your continued refusal to see your only family is a sign that you're not as well as you think you are, Miss French."
"I – I'm not – "
"No," says Regina with a pitying smile. "That's becoming quite clear." She glances at Moe, who looks uncertain, unsure. Isabelle isn't sure if he's complicit in this, as he was before, but she can't trust that he'll stand up for her – can't trust him at all.
She has to find her own strength, but she can't. She can't remember Archie's promises or Emma's protection, can't think of anything except this woman with her scarlet smile and evil eyes.
She remembers long years where Regina Mills was her only visitor, peering at her through the slot in the door. She remembers that.
"Your father and I have only ever wanted what's best for you," Regina says then, poisoned words that Isabelle doesn't believe for a second. She's not innocent, not naïve; she lost all that one day long ago when…when…
When she kissed somebody and was sent away, she thinks, only that's not right. She'd kissed a handful of boys in high school, but never been rejected. She lost her naivety the day the orderlies came for her – that's right, that's what happened.
"You don't," she manages at last. "You put me in that place and you left me to rot."
"Now, Isabelle, you were being treated," says her father, but he has no idea, has no clue, and Isabelle chokes on a bitter laugh. She hadn't been treated. She'd been drugged, pills forced down her throat and needles stuck in her arms until she could hardly remember her own name at times, but there had been no treatment. No attempt to make her better – if she'd even been ill in the first place.
"It worries me that you can't remember how much they were trying to help you," says Regina. There's something of satisfaction about her, something of vindictive pleasure and it makes Isabelle feel sick. She can't think what she ever did to this woman to create such enmity, such glee in her viciousness.
"They weren't helping me," Isabelle says, and she clenches her hands into fists to try to stop the trembling. "And I haven't forgotten anything."
Regina gives her another pitying look, turns to Moe. "You remember, lack of memory was one of her symptoms before," she tells him. "She could never remember the violence or the self-harming."
"Izzy, sweetheart, I just want to make sure you're okay," says Moe, and he steps closer, as if he's going to come around the desk towards her. Isabelle shakes her head, lifts a hand, wants to ward him off but knows she can't. Knows she's got nothing to fight him with. "If you're forgetting stuff – look, Dr Hopper's a decent guy, he needs to know about this."
"I'm not forgetting anything!" Isabelle snaps. "I remember everything, Dad! Everything you did – everything she did!"
"I haven't done anything to you, dear," says Regina, and Isabelle thinks, wildly, that she hates that word coming from the Mayor. When Mr Gold uses it, it's an endearment. Regina uses it as a weapon, a sharp dagger between the ribs to cut down her opponents. "This paranoia is deeply troubling," she continues. "I really think we'd better get you seen by a doctor."
"I really think not."
Emma – and Isabelle gasps in relief, feels her knees buckle beneath her and grabs wildly for a chair. Emma is here, Emma will make the Mayor go away. Emma's the white knight on a white horse, charging to the rescue.
"Isabelle, are you okay?" she asks, pushes Moe aside and comes to her side. A hand at her elbow, helping her to the chair at the desk. "Sit down."
"I'm alright," Isabelle whispers.
"Yeah?" Emma surveys her, nods just once and turns to her persecutors. "Mr French, I think Isabelle's made her wishes quite clear," she says, polite but firm, a hint of trouble in her voice. "She doesn't want to see you."
"Mr French is Isabelle's father," says Regina, and she's sneering a little. She doesn't like Emma, for more reasons than Isabelle really understands. Some of it's Henry, of course, but there are other things, undercurrents of hostility and history that ripple through their interactions. "He has a right to see her."
"As far as I'm concerned he doesn't," says Emma. Hands on her hips, sheriff's badge gleaming at her waist, and Isabelle has absolute faith in her. Emma won't let Moe get her, won't let Regina get her. "She's an adult and she doesn't lack the capacity to make her own decisions, no matter what you'd like to believe."
"He's her father," says Regina again. "Her only relative. He's just concerned for her health – we both are."
"Well, Isabelle's fine," says Emma, lifting her chin, defiant and resolute. "And as I'm sure you're aware, Madam Mayor, Dr Hopper has testified to the judge that she's no danger to herself or anyone else."
"I just want to speak to her," says Moe, pathetic in his repetition, and Isabelle thinks perhaps he's telling the truth, perhaps that is all he wants. Perhaps the Mayor is manipulating him, using him as she uses so many other people. It wouldn't surprise her, but it doesn't change her mind. She won't – can't – speak to her father. Not yet, at least. Not for a long while.
"Mr French, she has no interest in seeing you," Emma tells him. "And Madam Mayor, given your involvement in Miss French's case and the lack of transparency around her hospitalisation, I'd think seriously before coming near her again."
"Are you threatening me?" Regina demands, and she sounds almost amused. "Be very careful, Miss Swan."
"It could constitute harassment," says Emma, not answering directly. "And as you know, I take my job very seriously."
They stare at each other for a moment, white knight and black queen, and Isabelle shivers. She can't imagine how anyone could beat Regina – except, perhaps, Emma. Stalwart and brave, fierce in defence of what she sees as right, Emma can withstand anything and anyone.
"Mr French, we should go," says Regina flatly at last. "We're obviously not welcome." She turns and stalks out, and Moe looks at Isabelle pleadingly one last time before following in her wake.
Emma comes back to her, wraps her arms around her and holds tight. "It's okay," she whispers. "It's okay. They're gone."
"I – I have to lock up," Isabelle mutters, feels exhausted, confused. Shattered by the events of the past few minutes. "Is it twelve yet? I can't…I have to stay open until…"
"It's twelve," Emma assures her. "Get your stuff, I'll make sure everything's locked up."