Chapter Text
For SPL, I hope you enjoy it ♥
Zelena closes the door behind her and sighs, looking up to the sky from her place on the porch. The color oddly reminds her of paper, paper from the books she spends most — if not all of her time — reading.
That time of the year has arrived, where it gets so bloody cold you can barely feel your feet. She hasn’t checked the weather forecast, but won’t be surprised if it snows today.
What a fantastic day to go out, indeed.
As she trudges through the path to her car, loneliness attaches itself to her shoulders as an old friend that she will never get rid of howsoever she tries.
But isolation was what she needed at that time. What she had desperately needed, she thinks, shuddering a little (and nothing to do with the cold now). An escape plan. It was comfortable, if not mildly pathetic, the way she would spend days on end at the beginning of her stay in Storybrooke holed up inside her farmhouse.
However, she cannot complain. Being alone is better than… her previous situation.
The sound of her heavy inhales, exhales, inhales, exhales cut through her self-absorbed train of thought. Not the best weather to go out, especially with her being prone to have an embarrassing stuffy-nose voice in the winter, but solitude is not the best idea, not anymore. Her sister always reminds her of this, encouraging her to pursue any interests she might find now that she’s not Zelena, ‘wife extraordinaire’. She needs to go out every day to avoid losing herself once again.
What solidifies her resolve is the crunch of the gravel beneath her boots, doing a good job of convincing her she is marching through some big challenge.
But what big challenge, though?
Inside the car she takes a deep breath and lets it out quickly, trying to shake off the cold. It’s useless. Looking at herself in the rearview mirror makes her wish she hadn’t – she is different. She has changed. And she finds herself at a loss…
Who am I now? Who am I looking at? Who’s Zelena Mills?
That’s the big challenge, it seems.
The smell of worn, well-read books is a comfort she should not take for granted. Alas, she still does, believing this place to be merely a way to pass the time away from her lonely house and not the crutch it surely is.
Zelena peruses her choices with a keen eye, moving from one section to another, her fingertips brushing through spines of books upon books as she tries to find her next victim. She rolls her eyes at her analogy even though the corner of her lips betrays her amusement with the idea.
Her boots are the sole disruption of the silence inside the building, and she honestly cannot care less; it’s not like they’ll complain. After all, she’s Zelena, the weirdo isolated beyond measure and living in the countryside. Or something that resembled the countryside, at least, thanks to its location in the north-west corner of Storybrooke.
Regardless, there aren’t many people here at this moment of the day. Mornings aren’t the typical time for Storybrooke citizens to be meandering around at the library of all places.
The myriad of weird thoughts come to a halt when Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West grabs her attention and so she grabs it from the bookshelf. The cover is old, slightly tattered around the edges, and in her opinion, that’s the best kind of book.
Zelena has finally taken a seat in one of the secluded tables when she hears, “Hi. I was hoping you could tell me where I can find the culinary books?” and turns to see what’s going on, to see who’s dared interrupt her newly acquired peace and quiet.
Of course it has to be that insufferable woman, she reasons, rolling her eyes in disgust. Ingrid.
She’s your usual ‘everything is sunshine and rainbows’ kind of person. One time, Ingrid exclaimed, “Have a great day!” when Zelena got her ice cream and went to leave Any Given Sundae (ludicrous name for an ice cream shop). Zelena hasn’t entered the place again because how could it be a ‘great day’ when it was so bloody hot the thing was melting before I managed to get home?
Damn you, happy-all-the-time people.
Scowling, she watches for a few moments as the library volunteer, who clearly hasn’t found the category chart yet, squirms for an acceptable answer. Sighing, Zelena drops the book on the table, leaving her purse and gloves on top of it as well. She gets up, wondering why she’s even bothering. She saunters to their location right next to the Circulation Desk.
“Shelf 35, if I’m not mistaken. There,” Zelena points to the opposite side they are on, scrunching her nose for a second, “next to that cart.” She purses her lips as she concentrates not to laugh at their bewildered faces. “Quite easily found, really.”
“Thank you,” Ingrid responds and scurries away in search of the section aforementioned.
Leaning against the counter, Zelena smirks as… what’s her name again? She skims her eyes on the nametag, and there it is: Belle, who continues with her stare that seemed to measure how much of an anomaly Zelena is.
It’s hard not to think of their first unofficial meeting, when she saw Belle for the first time… It all started one week or two since Zelena had escaped London and her ex-husband’s clutches. She found the Storybrooke Free Public Library right in Main Street. Well, it was more a matter of ‘it’s right there in front of your face’ than anything else, but she liked to think she found it and was not driven to enter its premises by pure boredom. That and the stares she was subjected to any time she left the house were downright irritating, to be honest, and she deserved a reprieve.
Anyway, she found the library and this elder man had welcomed her with open arms (or not), his nonsense attitude not taking any of Zelena’s bullshit or her sarcasm.
“Either I finally gave in to my old age or you are new around here, young lady. But don’t give me that attitude or I’ll make it really difficult for ya to find any good books around here.” Thus began a mutual respect for Gerhard, the harmless man who was waiting for the right person to take over his job.
Three months later came in Belle French (whoever named the girl was a truly uninspired person, Zelena remembered rolling her eyes when she heard it), with her enchanting accent and petite form, interested in the library as a whole. A bookworm, just like Zelena is now becoming (even if she hates to admit it). Her father’s the owner of the flower shop down the street and she’d just moved back into the country. There was something about her mother and France; however, Zelena won’t be able to tell you what it was — she was not paying attention in the slightest.
Bringing herself back to the present, she watches Belle’s arms cross and… her cheeks tint a lovely shade of pink. “Sorry, um… I’ve forgotten about the list on the computer. Thank you…?”
“Zelena,” she offers, wetting lips that had gone dry.
Belle repeats her name, smiling as if she’d enjoy committing it to memory, but that’s wishful thinking on her part.
Meanwhile, the morning light peered through the window, catching Belle’s brown hair in an ethereal glow. A flutter in her stomach has her swallowing as they stare at each other’s eyes for what seems like too many of her frantic heartbeats.
The sound of a page turning somewhere inside the library makes Belle shake her head and push her hair behind her ears as she looks away for a second, undoing the magic spell they’d been woven in for those blissful moments. “Sorry again, I’m not usually— I should let you get back to your book. Thank you for your help, truly,” she says, touching Zelena’s arm.
Zelena gives her a jerky nod, her previous smile flickering now that Belle has moved away to an aisle where spotting her became near impossible.
For those blissful moments, she’d felt alive.
What a strange feeling inside her chest.
Walking away to her safe haven is difficult – difficult when her heart continues racing so much, difficult when her arm still tingles with the memory of a touch. The innocuous table and her new book aren’t that interesting anymore; her mind is busy for the rest of the day. What books does Belle read? Is her hair as soft as it seems? What are her interests, what does she like to do? And no matter how much she wants to forget about it, read about Elphaba and stop questioning what makes Belle so intriguing and so different from any other human being in this forsaken town (except her sister, her wife and their son), it’s no use.
Rather annoying, really.