In the end, it's the sight of her own hand that stops everything.
After being sick, Belle makes her way back into the house (for the first time), desperate for a glass of water to wash out her mouth. Everything she sees has a strange dissonance to it: it's all familiar, yet Belle has never seen it before. This is her kitchen, but it isn't, because Belle doesn't even know how to turn on the stove, and this cup she gulps from is as startling as it is old. That is her living room, but Belle has never read a single one of the books sitting in a pile ready to be reshelved either here or at her (Isabel's) bookstore.
As if outside of herself, Belle watches her own body walk the familiar path down to the library. Her hand is steady, for all that she shakes, as she pushes the door open. And there is her couch, his chair, the books with bookmarks sticking out of all the pages—some of these, she and her husband are reading at the same time, and his bookmarks are usually a single strip of paper while hers are fancy ones with book-loving quotes and long tassels that drape over the binding (gifts left as if haphazardly forgotten by her husband atop her piles of half-read books).
It's so lived in. So welcoming. A shared life.
But not hers.
Not anymore.
Belle's eyes are raw with tears she never shed, while Isabel's mouth is raw from the vomit she didn't spew, and it's all too much and not enough (too much for one person, not enough to regain footing).
She can't breathe, and she draws up her hand to place over her mouth, as if the feel of her exhales against her own knuckles can ground her.
And that's when she sees it.
Her wedding ring.
Isabel's wedding ring.
In a flash, memories pour through her—not Belle's this time, overwhelming Isabel—but Isabel's, seeping up through the cracks, pouring in over the walls, drenching her every thought in what has been, up until just moments ago, her reality.
Storybrooke. Her bookstore. Her father's flowershop. Granny's. And this: home. His pawnshop.
His wedding ring that he placed on her finger.
Rumplestiltskin. The Dark One.
Belle takes in a deep breath. And another. Another. The room stops spinning. Her lungs are no longer collapsing. Her heartbeat steadies.
She thinks of the man who came home early, looking ready to collapse, all those months ago. Mrs. Gold, he said, as if he hadn't remembered she existed until that moment. As if he were someone new, someone old, coming up from between the cracks and pouring over the walls and overtaking the old.
Rumplestiltskin. He remembered. It was him. Him, who chipped the cup and never threw it away (and wrapped it in his handkerchief to take away with him as if it were a priceless treasure). Him, who commissioned her lovely bookcases and read by her side and shared pie and brownies with her (and told her that, one day, she would use his weaknesses against him). Him, who laughed with her at the town as they strolled arm in arm through the special day's festivities (and told her jokes solely to get her to laugh and stayed with her in the hospital all night long despite his stiffened, aching leg). Him, who kissed her and held her so tightly and begged her for one moment to pretend (and wished he could keep her).
Rumplestiltskin, who is looking for a son Mr. Gold doesn't have.
A long time ago, in another place (another world? or is this their world, remade?), Belle begged her father to ask for help from the Dark One. He'd refused, and when she'd written a letter to send herself, Maurice had caught her with it and burned it before her—and they'd ended up losing everything because of it. Rumplestiltskin is the most powerful being in their world, equal to the Blue Star herself, and if a curse caught him up…there'd have to be a very good reason for him to allow it.
Did I ever mention a son?
Belle's hands fall to her sides. Paper crinkles in her pocket. She knows, even as she draws it out, what she'll see. There are the six pieces of paper guaranteeing her absence—all since cashed in and fulfilled—in one pocket. But in the other, there is the single coupon he handed her only moments ago.
As soon as I'm done, Isabel, I'll go to the cabin. Whether you're there or not—it is entirely up to you.
The strange double-vision clears as Belle brushes her teeth and heads out to the car. Sheer muscle memory has her sliding inside, closing the car door, turning on the engine…but then she pauses. Does she really know how to drive this thing?
Well. It can hardly be any more difficult than learning the Eastland language on her own, now can it?
If she were smart, if she were as sensible as her papa has always wanted her to be, she'd head for his flowershop. Or the sheriff's station. Or even hole up in her bookstore and change the locks just in case the dark imp comes for her. If she were as clueless and as lost as all the people she passes, milling about in the streets, calling new (old) names, searching for loved ones lately remembered, Belle would probably have chosen to join their masses to try to figure out where they are and how they can get back home.
But Belle is none of those things. Her intellect told her to call for Rumplestiltskin's aid, but it was ignored (as she was with the yaoguai by everyone she spoke to; as Isabel was for her entire existence). Her good sense led her to hide in a cave where she nearly lost all sanity, all meaning, shrinking away into nothing in the lightless solitude. And Belle has never appreciated being clueless, never stood for being lost, when there is always a way to find answers.
(I choose you, Isabel promised her husband. I'm going to keep choosing you.
Belle wants to know if that's still true.)
She drives out of the town, past the clocktower that shows her it's still early (it feels like whole lifetimes have passed), and retraces her route back to the cabin. She has only just made the turn onto the long, winding road that leads back to the cabin, when she sees something rolling toward her from ahead.
It's vast, and purple, and it gains momentum as it goes so that Belle scarcely has time to slam on the brakes before it overtakes her. Throwing her arms up over her head, she holds her breath against the spicy heat of magic, smelling like roses and tasting like straw, as it envelops her—and then keeps going.
So either she wasn't its target…or it's enclosing the whole town in some manner.
Belle thinks of the Dark One telling her he had an appointment he was late for, and she imagines that such overwhelming magic can only have something to do with that.
For an instant, her heart quells. Her hand actually twitches toward the gearstick, all set to turn the car around and head back to town (to safety). But there is something inside her (something she thinks might be Isabel) that keeps her eyes fixed forward.
Her lips still burn with the force of his kisses. Her skin yearns for his touch. Her mind is full of memories of his quiet laughter, his startled smiles, his gentle touch. Countless nights of him wrapped all around her, keeping her safe, driving the dark away, are embedded within her.
Looking under the guise of a flaming demon, Belle once found a determined prince. Beneath the chatter of what is possible and impossible, she once discovered that a dwarf could love as deeply as anyone else. Through the armor of an aloof warrior, Belle once befriended a young woman with more softness to her than she'd ever admit aloud. Nearly every experience in Belle's life has proven that she cannot judge a book by its cover.
"You can't know what's in someone's heart until you truly know them," she mutters to herself.
And she doesn't stop again until she's parked in front of the cabin.
She doesn't make it all the way inside. Still feeling a bit unsteady, Belle sinks down onto the top porch step and watches the woods around her. They look like ordinary trees, so familiar she can fool herself into thinking she's still in her own world if she simply chooses not to look over at her car, at the cabin behind her (if she ignores the open threats from the Evil Queen to curse their whole world to a horrible fate).
Tiny pockets of that magic fog still eddy through the roots of the trees, seeping into the ground itself, and Belle wonders that it doesn't smell of apples (the last one did, sweeping outward to engulf them all: the overpowering stench of bruised, rotting apples). Does all magic work that way? Signed by the sense-signature of its caster? And what does it mean, then, that Rumplestiltskin's (for this must be his doing) is all roses and straw?
Perhaps she's only distracting herself, because when Rumplestiltskin walks (still limping, still leaning on that cane she's never heard mentioned in any story of him, even the oldest accounts in the most obscure books she could track down) out of the woods toward the cabin, she feels only numb.
His eyes are fixed on the ground, helping him pick his way through the underbrush, and so for a long moment, Belle is free to observe him as closely as she might wish.
He's human. That's the first thing that strikes her. He's just an ordinary man, middle-aged and lame and shorter than she ever expected. And he's handsome. Striking, even. That was never mentioned; nothing about his physical appearance ever was save the scales that covered his skin and the moss that grew on his teeth and the claws that tipped his talons.
When he finally looks up, Belle sees the instant he notices her presence. It isn't immediate. His eyes glance right over her at first, and there is such a look of resignation on his face that she instantly knows he doesn't expect her to keep her promise. (He was telling the truth, when he told her it was her choice.) Only on a second look around does Rumplestiltskin actually register her presence, and he stops stock-still on the path, his eyes so wide that even across the distance yawning between them, Belle can count the colors in his eyes.
"You…you're here," he stammers.
That numbness she's felt since feeling magic caress her twice-over cracks but holds. Though it is poor answer to the wondering awe in his eyes, Belle manages to give him a close-mouthed, slanted smile.
It's as if she handed him a magic lamp with all the wishes he could ever want.
He actually rocks back a step, saved only by his cane, and his eyes go even wider, swallowing everything else up in his sudden, desperate hope. "Isabel?" he asks, so tentatively that she almost lies just to spare his heart.
"It's Belle, actually," she makes herself say (whatever this is, an ending or a beginning, she will not start it with a lie).
His disappointment, though quickly masked, is so raw that it cuts right through her. "Ah," he says, and he is composed impossibly quickly, looking away (hiding his heart), until his brow furrows and he says, "Belle of the Marchlands?"
She feels her own eyes widen, and she can't help the way she stands, her hand suddenly white-knuckled on the railing. "You know of me?" she asks.
Again, he looks away (as if the sight of her, Belle in Isabel's skin, burns him). "I waited for a summons as soon as the ogres began invading your lands. But one never came."
Her jaw tightens. "My father burned the letter I meant to send you."
"What did it say?" he asks after a silence so awkward she squirms in place, her hand falling from the railing to play with her own shirt cuffs.
"Something along the lines of, 'help, we're dying, please save us in exchange for gold.'" She musters up another smile, hoping for wry, but the effort is wasted when he refuses to look at her.
"Ah." He makes a strange, almost-flourish with the hand gripping his cane. "Well, see, I make gold. Not exactly an incentive."
"I had a golden dress," she blurts. It's such a ridiculous statement (banal; presumptuous; too much) that she winces at the sound of it.
But Mr. Gold—no, Rumplestiltskin's—eyes fly to hers, something dark lingering there. "Well," he says, swallowing. "A deal may always be reached between two interested parties."
For a moment, Belle lets herself imagine it, what might have been if she'd snuck that letter past her father. If Rumplestiltskin had come. If he'd asked for her as his price for saving her people. If he had, she would have gone, Belle knows herself that well. So, really, is it any wonder that they've ended up here, bound together (or are they? how binding is a cursed marriage?), that Isabel chose to tie herself to Gold for a somewhat similar reason?
(If this is the curse the Evil Queen spoke of, she thinks suddenly, then why was she allowed to be so happy these past months?)
Belle waits for Rumplestiltskin to speak, but he doesn't, too busy making that nervous fiddling with his fingers and pretending he's not stealing sideways glances of her.
He didn't think she'd be here. He doesn't know what to expect of her (of Belle). In this, she has the advantage of him—he knows nothing of her, while she has months and months' worth of memories of him.
And she will, she realizes abruptly, have to be the brave one.
When she walks down the steps onto the path, Belle can read the sudden tension in Rumplestiltskin's shoulders. She sees the barely perceptible tautness to his jaw. But all she does is show him the coupon he slipped into her hand so little time (lifetimes) ago.
"Shall we go inside?" she asks.
He sucks in a sharp breath. Belle's own numbness has shrunk, like ice melting in the spring sunlight, and a shiver runs down her spine as she turns toward the cabin to feel him behind her.
Except he's not. As she looks over her shoulder, she sees him still standing in the same place.
"Aren't you coming?" she asks, and he blinks up at her as if in a daze. Maybe she imagines it, but she thinks his lips twitch, as if somewhere deep inside him (buried beneath curses and trauma and centuries of loneliness), he wants to smile at her.
They make it inside and Belle heads straight for the couch. She almost fancies that the shape of her curled up form is imprinted there from these past several days. It doesn't surprise her, though, to see Rumplestiltskin stand very near the door, both his hands on the cane he plants between them.
"If you're going to end this and send me away, you might as well get it over with now, dearie," he says.
There's a snarl behind the words, a flash of menace in his eyes, and Belle wonders curiously if, were things not different, she'd be frightened of him. (She wonders, if she hadn't seen him sleeping at her side, leg twitching with some dream; if she hadn't watched him devour two bowls full of brownies in a single sitting; if she didn't know that he loves nothing more than to lie in her lap and have her pet his hair…would she believe the mask he's trying to show her?)
"Don't call me that," she says.
He rears back. "That's what I call everyone," he says, his voice nearly monotone.
"I'm not everyone else," she says. "I'm—"
"A stranger," he interrupts her, and this time, when he looks away, she sees the sheen in his eyes. "Just a stranger like everyone else."
"That's not all I am," she says softly.
There is a long beat of silence before he asks, "Still?"
And Belle's heart twists in her chest as the last of her numbness sloughs from her mind, from her soul (as two sets of memories find some form of peaceful coexistence).
"This is the Evil Queen's curse, isn't it?" she asks instead of giving an answer she's not sure she's ready for.
"You know about that?"
"I heard talk of it," she says vaguely, her turn now to avoid his eyes. "And I remember…I remember seeing it come."
"I was a little preoccupied at the time," he sneers (she remembers whispers of the caged beast beneath Snow White's palace). "But, yes, this is the curse she cast—to bring us all to a place with no happy endings save hers. A Land Without Magic."
"But…there is magic. I've felt it twice now."
"The first was the prophesied savior breaking the curse."
Belle blinks. "Breaking? But…we're still here."
Rumplestiltskin's eyes narrow, his mouth curving upward in a crescent moon of triumph. "Yes," he says simply.
"And the second wave? That fog? That was you, wasn't it?"
He shrugs and makes another muted flourish, almost a flick of his fingers. "Magic," he says. "I brought it here."
"To this world?"
"To this town," he clarifies.
"Why? If you let Regina cast the curse, if you wanted us here in this land, then why bring magic here after all?"
Rumplestiltskin straightens (she wishes he'd come sit beside her; or is that too close? She wishes he'd at least sit in the chair to her right). "Why did you come here?" he asks. "You didn't have to. You could have fled to your father. To the other rulers. Any of them would have given you protection."
Lacing her fingers together, Belle stares at the wedding ring still on her third finger (protection isn't always what it's cracked up to be). "Why do you always drink out of that chipped cup?"
With a huff, Rumplestiltskin steps away from her. "This is a waste of time, isn't it? I shouldn't have come. You—"
Belle stands and sets herself in his path. She keeps her face open, her hands loose at her side, and she doesn't let him look away from her (do the brave thing, she thinks). "Are we married?" she asks bluntly.
And she sees it: the pure and raw pain that flits across his face, glaring outward from the strips torn in his tattered mask.
"No," he says, so quietly she hears him only because she is no more than a foot away from him. "Isabel Gold is gone now."
"No. No, she isn't." Belle slides an inch nearer him (he's so ancient, so damaged, so defensive). Her hands itch to reach for his (he's so lonely, so broken, so dear). "You asked me who I was, once, and I told you. I'm Isabel Gold."
"Belle of Avonlea," he counters with a snarl, sliding an inch away from her (the Dark One in retreat, and he brought magic here, but he hasn't used it once, not on her, not against her, and Belle feels a radiant glow inside her chest).
"I'm both," she says. "And I already told you: I choose you."
He goes so still she's convinced he's not even breathing.
"I'm going to keep choosing you," she continues, moving forward, an inch at a time (wary not to startle him; not when she knows the timid man that hides inside the husk of the monster). "Because it was you, all this time, the real you. Rumplestiltskin."
His flinch is minute, but it reverberates through them both. The first time she's said his true name (and names are a power to which he is peculiarly attuned).
"You don't want this," he breathes. (It's as much a lie now as it was when he first said it.)
"Want my husband?" Belle asks. Her hand lights, so gently, atop his on his cane. "The man who makes me tea every night? Who designed the most beautiful bookcases I've ever seen and ensures I never run out of books? Who likes peach pie because I thought of him when buying it? Who catches me when I fall and keeps the cup we chipped and never tells me to turn the light off in the dark? How could I not want that man?"
"What…" He swallows so hard she almost coos at how painful it must have been. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying things change." She bites her lip, then, as she steels herself for the final step. Her hand slides up from his cane to his chest to his shoulder. He is shaking. The tremors are disguised by his suit coat, but from this close, she feels them resound down through her bones to strum her heart. "I'm saying that I love you, Rumplestiltskin."
And then she waits. For him to snap and snarl and shake her. For him to flee, to run, to cower, to hide.
(For him to be brave, too, the way she knows he can be.)
He does nothing. Belle feels cold—until she looks up and watches the tears fall from the eyes that have slid shut.
"Rumplestiltskin," she says again, a long, maze-like breath around the mess of syllables (she wishes he'd say her name back to her).
More tears fall, but so does his cane, a tiny, too small barrier between their feet. Belle nudges it aside and steps so close that her skirt folds between his legs, her feet slotted between his, her hands roving up to play with the ends of his hair. This time, his shudder is too large to be hidden.
"Belle," he says (as if for the first time; as if he's still saying Isabel). His hands are feather-light on her elbow and her hip. His eyes are still tightly shut.
"Ask me to stay," she whispers.
His muscles are corded tight under her touch. "Belle," he says again. "You can't…"
"I will," she murmurs. "I will if you want me to."
And his hand moves from her elbow to her shoulder, squeezing tight as if to check that she's real, that she's really here (that she isn't afraid of his touch). His eyes open, a tiny slit, like he's afraid to wake up from some dream.
"Belle." His brogue caresses the name, and it's her turn to shudder at the sound of it (at the way he's familiarizing himself with it). "You…you aren't afraid of me?"
"I'm not."
(He shook her, but it was out of fear; he sent her away, but she'd promised him to go; he invited her to meet him here, but he didn't assume, didn't coerce, didn't threaten.)
"You don't hate me?"
"Never."
(He helped her pick up her shaken books; he knows exactly how she takes her tea and makes it more carefully than she ever has; he holds her so tightly every night in their bed but doesn't move to stop her whenever she shifts away.)
"You…you must know I'm a monster."
"You're not a monster. You're my husband."
(And he is. He is, because she chooses him, because she vows herself to him, because she wants him and no one decides her fate but her—and he is hers, she will not give him up.)
"Belle!" he gasps, and he falls into her. His hand is clumsy as he tries to catch a fistful of her dress, his chin bumps painfully against her shoulder, his nose is wedged uncomfortably behind her ear, and Belle has never been so happy in all her life(s).
"Rumplestiltskin," she murmurs, each syllable a kiss against his cheek, his brow, his hair (it smells of straw, and blends with her own perfume of roses, and combines like magic). "Ask me," she urges him, her hands raking through his hair to keep him from pulling away from her.
"Will…will you stay? Please?" She hears the way he bites off the end of that word, imagines that he hates its appearance at all, but it softens her heart, turns her entire being into pliable soul all ready to mold herself around him.
"I will stay. With you," she says. "Forever."
"My darling Belle," he says, fiercely, and his mouth seals over hers. (I love you, she thinks he says, in a language only this man, the deal-maker, this trader in names and power, can speak.)
Belle presses tighter, rising to her tiptoes, and it's as if no time has passed since this morning and as if an eternity has divorced her from the days before, when she was afraid and uncertain and left in the dark.
(She hates the dark; she hates being in the dark; but Rumplestiltskin glows brilliantly golden and shatters the darkness and proves there is nothing to fear; he'll protect her.)
Rumplestiltskin sits in a cabin on a couch before a smoldering fire and wonders how he got here. Never, in any of his seer visions, in a single one of his own predictions, in the least of his expectations, did he imagine himself here, sitting with a woman lying beside him, her head resting so trustingly on his thigh, her hair soft and silky beneath his calloused hand.
But here he is. Here they are.
Isabel—no. No, not Isabel. Belle. Belle who chooses him even knowing who he is (or else she's playing a long game, committing herself to a part that might see her scourged by clerics, and all to be a hero for people who don't even care to see how special, how amazing, she is).
She's full of questions, the woman hiding behind his wife (the woman who claims she's still his wife). He answered some, evaded more, distracted where he could, and enjoyed the slanted stares she gave him to let him know he wasn't fooling her. But gradually, as the day passed, as the fire burned, as her questions grew further apart, she slid down and down and down until she laid her head on his knee and Rumplestiltskin thought he surely must be dreaming.
But that was hours ago, and she's still here. He's still here, despite the magic thrumming through his veins, lightening his heart, eradicating exhaustion and despair and regret and uncertainty.
He's so close. So impossibly, incomprehensibly close to finding his son. Just a few more hours, perhaps the night to try to convince Isabel—Belle—to come with him on his search, a quick trip to gather everything he's packed, and then…then he'll be on his way. Finally in the same world, in the same time, in the same place as his boy.
"Bae," he whispers to the flames and the dark.
Beneath his caressing hand, Belle stirs. His attention is immediately pulled to her, but she doesn't wake, settling once more against him, one of her hands coming up to cup his left knee beneath her cheek.
He nearly chokes on his tongue. Such a small touch, but so intimate, so familiar, that it boggles his mind to feel it for himself. He's become accustomed, in his long centuries, of watching others share close touches, intimate moments, familiar exchanges. He knows (knew even before his curse and immortality and a never-ending quest) how to be the outsider, the observer, the one always left on the fringes.
What he is not used to is being on the receiving end of that closeness.
"Who are you?" he whispers.
She's not Isabel, not fully, not anymore. There is more to her now, and for all the sleepless nights under his curse that Rumplestiltskin spent fearing the stranger beneath the curse, she is not so different after all from his wife. Brave and kind and far too trusting…perhaps a bit more insightful, a bit more able to look beyond the mask to see what lurks beneath. Certainly more decisive. But still…there is more of Isabel in her than he ever expected there to be.
And yet, for all that, she is still (in part, perhaps in the most dangerous parts) a stranger.
If he were smart, he'd send her away. If he were as ruthless as the Dark One has always been, he'd convince her that he cares nothing for her, that he only played a part as her husband, and that he wants nothing more to do with her. If he were the powerful creature he is supposed to be (and not the cowardly, lonely, hurting spinner he's tried so hard to leave behind), he would not need her to gentle him through the settling of magic in this alien world.
Oh, Rumplestiltskin always planned on using this cabin as his hideaway from the town until he became accustomed to the strange differences that magic might show here in the Land Without Magic. He always assumed that he'd hunker down for a bit, plot out his last few bits of work (revenge for Regina's meddling; assurances to guarantee the savior doesn't forget that owed favor; a few threats to ensure fear of him keeps the town from interfering with whatever his search for Bae will require), and then he'd leave town—alone.
Even when he slipped that coupon into Isabel's hand and kissed her goodbye and tore his eyes from her for what (he believed) would be the last time, he never thought he'd have to shift his plans.
But then.
Then Belle actually came. She waited for him. She told him she chooses him (and no one has ever done that before; oh, Bae said he would, still smelling of campfire and the piper's mournful melody, but Rumplestiltskin didn't let that play out, did he?). She's here, and she has made no move to leave, and suddenly Rumplestiltskin finds himself thinking of things he gave up long ago.
Cora made him feel this way. She made him dream of a future, and love, and children, and a happy ending.
But then, look how that turned out.
Who is to say Belle will be any different?
(She's dark-haired and bold and unafraid of him, and if he squints and lets memories rear their ugly recollections, she could be Milah, she could be Cora, she could be his worst nightmare.)
Rumplestiltskin weaves his fingers through her curls, and wonders how a single heart can both mourn and triumph over the same woman (Isabel; Belle; he doesn't know the latter, and may only think he recognizes the amalgamation of them both the way he thought he saw his son in a puppet).
"You're thinking too hard," Belle murmurs without opening her eyes, and Rumplestiltskin's hand freezes in its half-made caress. "Don't stop," she adds, and takes her hand from his knee to place over his in her hair. "It feels good."
It does. It's almost criminal how good it feels, not to mention how alluring the warmth of her breaths feathering over the inside of his leg is.
"You were tired," he says, inanely (he needs a distraction).
"I haven't been sleeping well." Before he can do more than tense, she sits up—not facing outward toward the fire, but facing him. Look as hard as he might, he can spot no sign of fear in her clear blue eyes as she meets his gaze. "I missed you," she says.
Rumplestiltskin's breath catches in his throat. He should tell her that it's mutual, but…he can't. The words are locked up tight inside him. (He knows she still has her heart, unlike Cora; he knows that her yearning for belonging is stronger than her desire to see the world, unlike Milah; he knows, but he fears otherwise.)
Still. She must see something in his frozen expression, because her face melts into a fond smile (the same one she gave him in their library). "Sweetheart," she says, her tone all affection, her gaze all admiration. When she lifts her hand and strokes his hair back from his brow, he can no longer stop himself from curling his arm around her waist and pulling her closer.
But then he goes still. Watching her. Afraid of what her reaction might be. (She is a stranger as much as she is his wife, after all.)
Her smile only grows, and she erases the last few inches between them of her own accord.
"You can kiss me," she says (to her credit, she tries to keep her amusement hidden). "We are married, after all."
"Belle," he says. Her name is still new on his lips, but it suits her (it suits him the more often he says it); Isabel distilled down to her purest, strongest, most beautiful truths. "Beautiful Belle."
The kiss he drops onto her mouth is so quick, so light, that she blinks up at him as if wondering if she imagined it.
(The very idea that she might imagine closeness with him, might dream of it, is so staggering that Rumplestiltskin's heart clenches into a tight knot behind his breastbone.)
"Sweetheart," she says again, biting her lip to contain her smile. And then she kisses him—and something strange happens.
The magic inside him, fizzing and sparking and lending him urgency and confidence, just out of reach since the purple fog enveloped him…it goes quiet. Still. But simultaneously, it feels the closest it's felt since arriving in this world, suddenly tingling in his fingertips, sparking from his eyes, settling into the contours of his twisted heart, connected to him in a way it wasn't a moment before.
Just for an instant that passes almost immediately, but the effect rocks through him like that earthquake that hit Storybrooke when Emma found something to tie her here.
The Dark One whispers that he should stop kissing the girl and explore what could affect their magic, what could possibly touch the strange, muted version of it here in the Land Without Magic, but Rumplestiltskin is, for the first time in possibly centuries, stronger than the curse within him.
So he doesn't stop kissing Belle. Instead, he cradles the side of her face with his free hand so he can tilt her head and better angle her mouth against his. Her lips part for him, her tongue greets his, her breaths are staggered against his cheek, and if this moment never ends, it will be too soon. Her hands are in his hair—he nearly groans aloud—and she scoots so close that she's practically in his lap, pressing even nearer, every curve and slope of her body plastered against his so that he feels them all with every gasped inhale he manages between kisses.
She's shaking in his arms (not fear, though, not loathing: want) and he cannot resist tightening his arm around her waist, letting his hand land high on her ribcage, teasing a touch that has her squirming until she's fully atop him.
"Rumple—" She gasps when his lips move to her neck, along her collarbone, in the hollow of her throat, and the way she arches against him leaves him shaking too—shaking so much that he tilts sideways and then slides down on the couch (an accident, he'll insist should she ask, but a happy one seeing as how it ends with her lying fully atop him), his arms full of her weight and her presence and her willingness.
It's not until her hands busy themselves at his throat, glancing little touches against the underside of his jaw, that Rumplestiltskin fully realizes the position they've found themselves in.
She's pulling off his tie and unbuttoning his shirt. He's tracing the contours of her spine, her ribs, her shoulders, down, down the front of her chest, searching beneath fabric. Their legs are all tangled together, each writhing movement setting lightning bolts sparking on the insides of his eyelids, and even her foot glancing against his ankle (the same ruined one he'd hoped would fade once the True Love potion hit the remnants of Lake Nostos) can do nothing more than briefly distract from the plethora of sensations blanketing him from all sides.
Belle smells of roses—exactly like Isabel. She is soft, and warm, and so willing that it amazes and worries him all at once—exactly like Isabel. She does that thing with her tongue against the roof of his mouth—exactly like Isabel did. She can't seem to keep her hands from his hair—exactly like Isabel.
But she's not Isabel. Not wholly. Not without extras and addendums (and he hasn't had the chance to read the fine print of this deal, and he swore he would never make this mistake again).
When he manages to tear his mouth from hers, commands his hands to still where they are framing her hips, Belle at first only begins to trace her own kisses down his cheek, his throat, to the triangle of his chest she's managed to uncover. But gradually, she seems to realize that he is grasping for composure, for space, and though she doesn't make any move to tear herself from him, she does lift her head so she can meet his eyes.
"Belle," he reminds them both.
(If this were Isabel, still, the wife he's learned and knows and truly loves, then he wouldn't stop them. He'd refuse to regret taking her at her word, and he'd make them married in every way. But it's not just her anymore.)
"I do love you, Rumplestiltskin," she says, and he cannot help the way he moves her (as gently as he can with this sudden trapped feeling rising in him) off of him and to the side so he can roll to his feet. He can't find his cane. How is he supposed to walk without it? Magic is here, a miracle of epic proportions, but it's different and he hates this, being weak, having to scrabble on the floor for a crutch, it's not supposed to be this way—
"Here." Belle's voice is soft and she doesn't make him look at her as he takes the cane she offers him. Just the feel of it, the extra support as he leans against its stability, grounds him. Soothes the urgency crackling inside him.
"I'm sorry," he says. He's not even sure what he's apologizing for exactly (for taking advantage of her while cursed; for not giving her the escape she deserves; for not taking everything she's offering him; for looking at her and seeing a stranger threaded through his wife), but it's the least she deserves. He knows that much, at least.
"This isn't your doing," she murmurs.
A scoff escapes him, and Belle pauses in her straightening of her skirt, her hair, her shirt.
"This is the Evil Queen's curse," she says, a hint of uncertainty marring the statement.
"Well, she cast it," he says. If she is going to betray him to the townsfolk (if she is still just being the hero seeking to kill the beast), then this is the confession that will break her façade. "But I wrote it. And I gave it to her. And I told her how to cast it."
But Belle doesn't blanch and back away and run far and fast from him. She doesn't even look surprised.
"So I was right. You do want to be here," she observes.
"Yes."
"Why?" Before he can do more than tighten his jaw, she holds a hand up between them. "No. I think I know why. Or at least a bit of it."
"Oh, really?"
Her eyes are so clear, so transparent, so pure, as they slam straight into his. "You have a son. And you lost him. And you're trying to find him."
If she decides to betray him, he thinks in some small, distant part of his brain, she will destroy him utterly. She is smarter than Milah, more insightful than Cora, and more dangerous than any other hero, knight, charming prince, or bold princess he's ever met.
Belle stands and takes a step toward him. The feel of her reaching out to cradle his hand between hers is so precious (so perfect) that for a moment, Rumplestiltskin imagines that Bae is in another room, playing with a dog, and that this is truly his wife (and only his wife) and that his ending is (against all the odds and all the stories and all the obstacles between) a happy one.
"Will you tell me, sweetheart?" she asks.
It's not a demand. It's not an ultimatum. It's not anything but a simple question, and so Rumplestiltskin has no idea how to respond.
"Why do you call me that?" he finally asks.
Smiling, she only tightens her grip on his hand. "Do you not like it?"
"No, I do—" It's too quick, too desperate. Rumplestiltskin swallows and looks down at their joined hands. Not for all the gold (all the princesses in golden dresses) would he pull his hand free of hers. (But she will drop his, if not today, then tomorrow, when she sees him as he truly is: cursed. A beast. A monster. The Dark One.) "My heart is black as coal," he makes himself say. "It's dark as you never like the room to be. There's nothing sweet about it."
"I don't believe that," she says simply. "When I look at you, Rumplestiltskin…how could I call you anything else?"
Maybe he shouldn't punish Regina. Maybe he should send her a gift basket (if a few of the apples should be poisoned, well, that's just the way the world works). He can't imagine any other lifetime, any other way, he could ever be standing here, hand in hand with the kindest, purest soul he's ever known.
Of course, she's far too naïve. She looks at him, she holds her memories of Mr. Gold (Rumplestiltskin under the curse; Rumplestiltskin outside the full brunt of his own dark curse), and she fools herself into seeing some ideal, some too-shining image, that he'll never be able to live up to. He can do nothing but disappoint her, and hurt her, and the kindest gift he could ever give her is to leave her behind without a word.
But Rumplestiltskin has long since learned his lesson (over a portal, with his son's screaming denunciation in his ear) to never let go of the things he wants most.
"Tell you what," he says as he bridges the gap between them. "I will tell you the tale of my son if, in return, you agree to do something for me."
The foolish (wonderful) girl actually has the nerve to not only refuse to look scared of making a deal with him, but she actually brightens (as if she can think of only good things he could ask from her). "What?" she asks.
(Isabel, in a similar moment, when he was desperate and grasping and certain he would never see her again, promised him anything. Belle looks ready to do the same.)
He lifts his hand to caress her face, her cheek, her lips, memorizing every detail. "When you finally see behind the mask to the monster that's really there…don't hate me." He covers her mouth with his fingers when she makes to protest (to make a rash promise). "Leave, if you have to. Don't look back. Take whatever you want with you. But just…don't hate me."
"Sweetheart…"
"Is it a deal?"
Her silence lasts only a few heartbeats, technically, but it seems to elongate around him into an eternity. He survives it only because he is immortal.
"Fine," she says. "If that day comes, I promise. I won't hate you, Rumplestiltskin. I won't betray you or your secrets to anyone else."
"You'll be happy?" (Isabel deserves that, he thinks, to be happy even if it is not him that can make her that.)
Her eyes soften and warm and his hand falls from her mouth as she steps into his embrace. "I don't think I can be happy without you anymore."
"Belle…"
"I'll do what I can," she finally whispers into his neck, and some deep, secret tension inside him eases.
(She won't be able to keep this promise, not really. When she sees him for what he truly is, she won't be able to stop hating him. But maybe this will buy him a little bit of time. A little piece of happiness. Until he can find Bae.)
"Now," she says. "Tell me about your son."
Rumplestiltskin takes a deep breath. With a flick of his fingers, he rouses the fire back to its full glow and summons a feast on the floor at their feet, a mountain of blankets to add to the impromptu picnic. (Magic is different here, but he has the feel of it now, like sparks he can catch; it sings through him, making him powerful. Whatever Belle's kiss did to it, it is alive and in reach and so easy to access now.)
"His name," Rumplestiltskin says after he settles himself beside Belle, her hip and shoulder warm against his, "is Baelfire. Bae. My son. I lost him long ago to the Land Without Magic. And now I'm going to find him."
The flames paint beautiful, glowing patterns over her skin, but do nothing to dull the blue of her eyes as she slides a strawberry onto his plate.
"Belle," he says, (and he is brave), sliding his hand over hers. "Would…would you like to come with me?"
"Baelfire," she says (the first person besides him to say his son's name since he crushed Milah's heart in his hands). Her smile is luminous and so much more than he deserves. "Yes, Rumplestiltskin, I will go with you to find your son."
And how can he help but kiss her then, all strawberries and kindness?
(How can he do anything other than love her, in all her forms, desperately, hopelessly, forever, even knowing she will leave him one day? He swore to love nothing but his son, but he thinks…he thinks Bae would understand and forgive him this.
He only hopes Belle will too.)
A/N: Thank you for joining me on this crazy, fun story! I am halfway through writing a season 2 sequel to this story called 'Early Arrival,' and will begin posting it after the new year. I hope to see you there!