you can't

you can't go with this beast

It would be all right. She wanted to promise that it would be all right, but she didn't know if it would be, so she couldn't promise. Because she always kept her word. Always.

Until he broke it for her.

"How long?"

"Couldn't be more than forty-five minutes. She was fine when we gave her the dinner tray. That was about 6:30."

He laughed. All the time. As if all the world was a joke, and he was the only one who knew the punch line. It was odd to hear that delighted giggle out of the monster mothers used to frighten children at bedtime. Odd to hear a laugh at all, when no one laughed around the palace anymore. Not with the ogres raiding the villages and haunting the roads, not with homes burning and men and women being dragged off and screams in the woods.

"Fifty grams activated charcoal. Here — no, stop, I'll do it." She dimly felt her head tilted back, something hard and plastic eased down her throat.

A beast. Everyone knew he was a beast, but then she'd scalded her hand making tea for him the second week there, and when she went back to the kitchen to clean up she found a pot of ointment where she couldn't remember one being before.

It could have been nothing. She could have just overlooked it before. Except it wasn't the only time, not by half, though when she tried to thank him he claimed not to know what she was talking about, and then laughed that she was a bubble-headed princess who wouldn't be able to find her own nose if it wasn't on her face.

"She's stabilizing." A relieved sigh. "All right, monitor her for another twenty, and then if all's clear move her to ICU."

you had a life before all this

family

friends

The next sigh was not so relieved. "I'll go call Regina."

a life before

Belle

Consciousness was…fuzzy. And it ached. Every inch, every fiber, ached. Where… Her legs, her chest — her throat ached, and her head was throbbing. Where was she…

Wake. She was awake.

She was alive.

God — oh, god, her head was pitching…

Get up. She had to get up and get the fire going to boil water for tea. He liked tea first thing in the morning.

Voices. Strange and echoing. " — is she doing up here, doctor?"

Terror was sharp and icy. Her voice. The Woman's. There was the taste of copper in the back of her mouth; she wanted to bolt upright and run, but her body wasn't cooperating. Her legs ached so much…

Another voice. It was a little clearer now. "We called you as soon as we stabilized her."

"You should have checked with me first. This woman is very dangerous — "

"No choice. It seems that among the things you neglected — not the least of which was informing the Chief of damn Staff that you are housing committed, long-term psychiatric patients in the hospital, Madame Mayor — are proper facilities to treat said patients, whom you have apparently been keeping in the goddamn basement."

Down there. Out, then. And alive.

" — happy to know she'll live."

"She had better," The Woman snapped. Close enough that she could hear the staccato click of her heels back and forth. Fear clogged her already clouded mind, threatening to pull her back down. "She's no use to me dead."

She had to get up. Had to move her legs and get up. The Woman was here. She would have to run.

"Perish the thought. If you're so concerned about your patients being 'of use' to you, then you'd better think about moving her. I don't know what kind of dungeon you've set up down there, Regina, but from what I saw — "

"It's for their own good." The Woman's voice had changed, softened. Oozed. "It is imperative that we keep these patients in strict isolation. They are a danger to themselves and to others. You wouldn't want — "

Up. Get. Up. She tried to shift her feet. Her legs. They moved. She was pretty sure. She tried — they moved.

"What I want is for you to go away. Her chart said to call you if something happened, so I did. Now you can go get a cup of coffee or get your nails done or ride your damn broomstick around town or whatever it is you do at night. I need to work, and I need you not to be leaning over my shoulder the whole time. She won't be going anywhere for a while."

No straps. Not tied down. She could almost feel toes, her feet now, her hands. Get up. Get up, get upgetup… It was a drumbeat inside her head, panicked and pounding. Her mind spun like a top as the thought hammered away. NOW!

"Suz, where's the damn chart? I told you, I want vitals every hour and — "

She lurched upwards, forcing herself forward as the world whirled like a merry-go-round. There was a startled scream. Her eyes — she forced them open and the light blinded her. She crashed into something, somebody, and in a tangle of arms and legs landed hard on the floor.

Run. Spots danced across her vision as she fought against the shaking, aching muscles in her arms to push herself up. She saw people. Faces. The Woman. Decked in jewels and satins and smirking at her. Then she was moving, before she could think, her mind screaming and her legs just moving — she charged at The Woman. Plowed into her. Sent then both sprawling. The Woman's voice exploded in her ears. "Security!"

Run — run, before the guards come —

She ran. Tried to, anyway, tried to remember how but it didn't matter because her legs seemed to move on their own. Doors. Doors everywhere, and her legs headed for the nearest one. Blindly, hoping. People stared, but they didn't try to stop her. Her head was swimming — drowning — the world suddenly pitched to the side, and she crashed into the floor. Her feet immediately started scrambling, her hands heaving herself up, clumsy, slipping, either with the drugs or the panic. It was the strangest feeling, this separation of mind and body. She had to run, she only knew that she had to run, but her legs were taking care of it. They carried her past the warped sea of faces, twisting away from the hands grabbing at her, and her arms flailed out to push at a lone red door.

Then — air. Fresh and damp and cool. And she was outside, with no walls, no walls at all — but she couldn't think about that. Just run — run and don't look back, don't look back…

Don't look back. Don't think. Just go.

The castle was still and silent, and the wrongness of it prickled against her skin. The Dark Castle was never silent. Quiet, yes, but usually the background was soft with sounds, the creak of doors opening and closing of their own accord, the whispered words that were always just on the edge of her hearing. Now there was only the scratch of her shoes against the floor. It felt like the stone was holding its breath.

Don't cry. If she cried now, the sound would scrape along the walls and echo through the corridors. If she cried, he would hear. Still, the pressure of it was like a glass ball in her chest, threatening to crack. Don't cry, and don't look back.

He wouldn't be there even if she did. He was still in the dungeon. Belle was sure of it. He would hide in that damned hole until she was gone, out the castle, off his lands. As if that would prove a point. As if that would make him right.

Belle forced herself to head up the stone spiral staircase that led out of the dungeons to the main floor, to pass by the kitchen, which had a back door to the vegetable garden, and the others that led out to the proper gardens or down to the stables. She wouldn't be sent away like a basket of eggs that had gone bad. She was going out the front door.

She didn't let herself stop, couldn't, not even to grab a cloak or a better pair of boots. If she waited one minute, she would wait two, and two would become three, and then she would never leave. She would cling to this place, to him, and force him to throw her out, kicking and screaming, if he wanted her gone. He had her heart, but she would keep her pride.

The castle doors swung open for her, silent and easy, and Belle told herself she was glad of it. If the doors had been stuck, or locked, if she had to force them open on her own, it would have hurt more. It would have been hope.

Outside it was sunny and bright and beautiful. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. The birds were singing.

I promised I would stay with you forever. She'd never broken a promise before, never, and she wanted to feel angry at him for making a liar of her. Wanted to feel anything that wasn't this. Like she was breaking apart from the inside.

She marched down the road, not looking back to see if he was watching from the tower (he wasn't, she knew he wasn't). The air had the fresh, damp smell of early spring, with the promise of rain later — and she had to march out without a cloak just to prove a point — but she didn't care. She only cared about getting as far away as possible while she could still pretend it was her choice, just as much as his. He said he didn't want her, but she was choosing to leave. It was a lie, but it was easier than the truth.

Her feet found the road to the village she'd visited only a few days earlier. She needed to be practical. She had nothing but the clothes on her back. She was going to need to find food and shelter, to find a way to work or trade for them — work, probably, since she had nothing to trade with — and figure out where exactly she was going other than away.

It was an adventure. She'd always wanted an adventure. She pretended not to notice when she finally started to cry.