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.
He's waiting for her when she walks up the driveway to his house, leaning against the doorframe, cane in hand. Belle hurries towards him, greets him with a smile, revels in the kiss he gives her so easily.
"Hello," she murmurs, when at last they part. "You're happy to see me."
"I'm not unhappy," he says, and Belle laughs, shakes her head at him. "Do you have time to stay for supper, or are you expected back?"
"I told them I'd be here until late," says Belle, catches a glimpse of approval in his eyes as he shuts the front door behind her, ushers her through to the kitchen. "How was your day?" she asks, taking a seat at the kitchen table.
"Oh, more or less as usual," says Mr Gold; he moves around the kitchen, pulling out everything he'll need to make supper for them. "And yours, love?"
Love. He's taken to calling her that, a pet name that's hers and only hers. Other people are 'dear', or 'dearie', but she is love. She is his love. It makes Belle feel indescribably happy, somehow, that he's comfortable calling her that.
"Not bad," she says. "I had a session with Archie after work. Henry was there, his mother was late picking him up. So we talked for a while."
"Carefully, I hope," murmurs Rumplestiltskin, passing her by and brushing his fingertips over her shoulder.
"You weren't mentioned," Belle assures him, "by either name. And Henry knows it's important that the Queen doesn't know about me."
"Not until the right moment, at least," he says, and his expression is all cunning and mischief, pure Rumplestiltskin, and she hides a fond smile. "She knows that I know – I'm afraid I had to let that slip in a deal some time ago – but you…well. I did promise I'd keep you safe."
"You promised she wouldn't get me," says Belle, and something inside her is sharp and icy at the thought of it even now. "That's not quite the same thing."
"Yes, it is." Hard and uncompromising, and he comes to her, stands beside her and cups her cheek with his hand. "Do you believe me?" A moment, and he's hopeful but resigned, expecting that she doesn't believe him, doesn't trust him yet.
But she does, and she smiles.
"I do," she says. "Of course I do." Rumplestiltskin's smile is brittle, but pleased. He cannot comprehend why she trusts him, she thinks, but is happy she does. "But what do you mean by the right moment?"
His hand slides from her cheek; he goes back to preparing their supper. "Not something that we need to worry about right now," he says evasively, and Belle knows him well enough to know she won't get an answer now, but she can't stifle her frustrated sigh. It makes him smile a little as he glances at her, amusement flitting across his face but chased by regret, by sorrow, and the smile fades away. "Allow me a little time to enjoy this," he murmurs, and Belle can't meet his eyes suddenly.
"You felt time passing," she says at last. "All those twenty-eight years. Didn't you?"
"Yes."
Belle closes her eyes, shakes her head. She can't imagine it. It's hard enough for her to comprehend now, with two timelines in her head and neither fitting neatly with the other. She can't imagine how he lived like that, aware of the passage of time and aware of how it didn't pass.
"Don't think about it," he advises her. She opens her eyes again, watches as he puts a pan on the stove, drips oil in to heat. "It's not worth it. I couldn't explain it to you anyway, and you'll never experience it yourself."
"Because things are changing," Belle murmurs. Emma is changing things, the white knight working for good even though she doesn't know it. Snow White and Prince James, and everyone else…none of them know, and true love's kiss isn't enough to break the curse for any of them.
If only it could be that simple.
"Is your memory feeling more solid?" he asks her then, and Belle shrugs, rises and goes to stand next to him, takes the knife and the vegetables and begins to chop them.
"A little," she says. "But it's…it feels a little like I'm two people, and it's…not comfortable." She thinks of her childhood, of both childhoods. She lacked a mother in both, and her father…her father had done his best. Some things were unaltered by the curse, but some things are so different.
She remembers high school and she remembers the ogre wars encroaching on her village. She remembers orderlies injecting her with sedatives and she remembers Rumplestiltskin giving her a red rose. Things rub up against each other in her mind that don't belong, but it feels a little easier to sort through them now, to mark out what is Belle and what is Isabelle.
"Is this what will happen to the others?" she asks him. "When the curse breaks."
"No." He's silent for a moment, perhaps concentrating on the cooking or perhaps deciding what to say. Belle waits, finishes chopping a pepper and he takes it from her, gathers the pieces in his hands and drops them into the pan. The pieces hiss as they hit the hot oil, and he stirs absently. "For a while, perhaps," he concedes then. "But once we're all back where we belong, the memories of this place will fade. It will be like a dream."
"What about Emma and Henry?" Belle presses him, and he raises an eyebrow, fondly exasperated. Belle smiles, shrugs a shoulder, knows she has more questions than he could possibly answer, knows she's expecting answers from him that he may not have.
"Not for them," he says. "But that's not a blessing."
"And what about my memories?" she asks, and she takes the paper bag of mushrooms he holds out, spills them onto her chopping board and begins to quarter them. "Will they fade?"
"I don't know." He hates admitting it, scowls as he allows the words to be said, his expression dark and irritated.
"I'm sorry," Belle offers after a moment. "I just…I'm trying to understand."
He shakes his head, banishes the darkness, lifts a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. "Don't apologise," he says. "I owe you far more than answers." Belle doesn't say anything, turns her face into his touch and wonders…
She wonders many things. She wants many things. But he pulls his hand away and goes to the fridge, and Belle presses her lips together and concentrates on chopping the mushrooms.
Back where we belong, she thinks suddenly. Does that mean they will be returned to the place where they were, when the curse was cast? But that would mean the Queen's castle for her, and the prison cell for him, and she cannot bear the thought of being parted from him once more, or of being a prisoner again. So she keeps the question locked away inside her heart, does not allow herself to ask it.
She doesn't think he would answer this question anyway. Rumplestiltskin does not lie – he spins the truth, but never tells falsehoods. Silence would be his answer, she thinks, and that would perhaps be just as painful as a lie would be.
He takes the mushrooms and gives her several chicken breasts to slice into thin strips, and they are silent for a while as they prepare the meal together. Finally Belle speaks, forces lightness and cheerfulness into her voice and forces darkness from her mind.
"You couldn't cook, before," she says. "Or did you pretend you couldn't?"
"I learned here," he says, and he seems to feel the same as she, that the heavy thoughts of the future need to be banished, at least for now. "I cooked…before. Long, long ago." In the years before the curse, the years before his son left, but Belle won't speak of that, not now. "But no," he continues, "in the Dark Castle I had no need of it. Magic fulfilled many purposes, before you came."
"Doesn't all magic come with a price?" she asks, teasing a little. "Maybe that's why you wanted me. Maybe it was costing too much to eat."
"Oh, that's precisely why," he says, straight-faced, and Belle laughs as she goes to wash her hands. "I should have made that clear from the beginning, my interest in you has always been entirely culinary." She's still laughing, but her laughter fades at the look on his face, that look that makes heat curl in her belly. Her cheeks warm, and she turns away, goes to the cupboard to fetch plates and tries to force her blush away.
"Well," she says, "at least in this world you didn't win me in a deal. Although you did beat up my father." She glances at him as she lays the table. "Why was that? I know he stole from you, but…"
Rumplestiltskin sighs, turns the stove off and gives the contents of the pan one final stir. "He stole from me," he says, the words crisp, almost spat out. He doesn't want to talk about this, warns her off with his tone and his body language, and Belle hesitates. She doesn't want to spoil their evening, not when she has to go back to the apartment in just a few short hours. She doesn't want to ruin their time together with whatever dark cause he had for beating her father with a cane.
She goes to him, wraps her arms around his neck and coaxes him into looking at her. "I don't blame you," she tells him. "Whatever it was, I don't blame you."
Rumplestiltskin closes his eyes, touches their foreheads together. His breath is warm on her face.
"I thought he had caused your death," he mutters. "The Queen…she told me…lies. All lies, but I was a fool." His mouth curves in a bitter smile. "An empty-hearted fool. And then she told him exactly what to steal to hurt me."
"What could he possibly have stolen to hurt you that much?" Belle asks in a whisper. Then the answer comes to her; it's obvious now, obvious when she thinks how the sight of it had stirred the memories buried beneath the surface of her mind.
The cup.
The cup she had chipped so long ago on that first morning in the Dark Castle, the cup that's sitting in the other room right now, displayed in the glass-fronted cabinet.
She wants to ask how it's here – how something from that other world, their true world, can possibly be here. How it can exist here when she has lived most of the past twenty-eight years in a locked cell, stuck in time. She had never seen the cup before the other day, in this world.
She wants to ask, but this isn't the right moment. Instead she tightens her arms around his neck, presses herself close to him, kisses him gently.
It's benediction and forgiveness, it's love and understanding, and he makes a sound almost like a sob as his arms slide around her waist and he returns her kiss. Her lips part; his tongue flickers out to taste her. Belle thinks she could stay like this forever.
"I love you," she murmurs when they part. "I love you no matter what you've done."
"Don't leave me," he begs, and it's so out of character for him but there's something broken in him that wasn't broken when she was his housekeeper in the Dark Castle. Or rather, something new that's broken. There was pain before, deep and dark and hidden away inside him. Belle remembers the clothing belonging to his son. But this is new, this is different, and it makes her heart ache.
"I won't," she promises. "Not ever."
And she means it, although perhaps it's rash to promise it. But Rumplestiltskin seems relieved, cloaks himself in the surety of the promise, and he kisses her again.