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Eugene closes his eyes.
He holds his hand steady, gentle on her cheek but unmoving as she leans in closer and their lips meet. The feeling spreads through his chest like wildfire, choking his lungs and deepening the pit in his stomach, making every moment before this one painfully insignificant as she inches forward and moves her knees to lay parallel to his. The hand that rests on her cheek falls to the side of the boat to keep it from tipping over as her free arm loops around his neck. Her movements are slow and deliberate, inexperienced and itching to make up for lost time. Their clasped hands fall to his lap when they separate, and all he can see in the darkness is green eyes speckled with the reflection of a thousand lanterns, a thousand dreams, all laid out in front of them. Her gaze just as bright and hopeful as it was in those moments before they closed the distance between one another.
The wheels in his head are turning slowly as his gaze absentmindedly follows the golden reflections of light traveling over her eyes. She really couldn't expect to follow him around for much longer, right? He had enemies on his trail, he was wanted in every town-- and what about her? He still had no grasp on the tower-mother situation or her painfully skewed interpretation of the world. She could either go home, go with him, or go on her own-- and none of those really seemed like great options. Being responsible for that kind of naïveté would not be good for him or his image, and then what would all of those years of building it up be for?
"Eugene," she tethers him back to reality with a beckon so quiet he could get away with attributing it to the wind. His distracted gaze settles on her whole face again and his chest twists at the sight of her smile. "What now?"
Excellent question. He clears his throat, silently grabbing hold of the paddles again and rowing their boat back to the shore. The silence makes her a bit uncomfortable too, and for the first time in their journey, he doesn't relish the idea of her staying quiet.
Step one is to dock the boat. Once he gets that out of the way, he can worry about regaining feeling in his legs. He helps her out onto the deck and she greets Maximus as he ties the boat to the dock.
"What do you want to do?" He asks. That's probably a good start.
"I.. I don't know. I don't think I can go home."
"Why not?"
"I've seen too much." The smile returns to her face. "How can I go and leave this world behind?"
He turns to watch the village people filter back into their homes for the night. "You deserve this. A bustling town full of people, I can't give you that. You can't stay with me."
She frowns. "Because you're a thief?"
He hesitates, then nods. "Yeah. Because I'm a thief."
A bit of silence passes between them. Rapunzel is once again uncharacteristically quiet as she brushes her hand over Maximus' coat, though he's starting to recognize this expression as when she's deep in thought. Her eyes light up for a moment.
"There's a whole world, though, right? You showed me the maps. There has to be somewhere where people don't know you."
"Theoretically."
She hesitantly reaches over to touch his arm. "I don't care where we go, I want to stay with you. If that's okay, I mean. If you want me there."
It's been a long time since Flynn Rider last had another person to worry about, and though he swore he'd never go down that road again, he finds himself wholeheartedly nodding.
Maximus takes them a considerable distance away from Corona before dropping them off, his sworn duty still as a guard but silently promising Rapunzel he'd visit sometime (and silently threatening Eugene to stay off of his radar). Eugene tucks the princess' crown, now useless to him, into Max's saddle pouch. It's sad to see him go, for Rapunzel at least, but the bigger issue now is finding another mode of transportation.
By the next day, they find themselves in a village a few miles outside of Old Corona that he, surprisingly, hadn't been to before. A few exchanges later and he has them set up in a small, one room shack for the foreseeable future. It's not much, sure, but it is cozy, and Rapunzel is easily impressed. She loves it, fawns over every corner, and although it's a rental and he can't grant her the freedom to paint on the walls, he promises her that she can personalize anything that that does become theirs.
Theirs. The word makes his spine itch.
"Good," she tells him over a yawn as she settles into the single bed. "And maybe one day we'll run into Mother, and I can introduce you, and she'll let me take you back to the tower. I'd like to show you my paintings."
Eugene settles himself down to sleep on the floor in the corner and pretends like he doesn't hear the frog growl with discontent at the thought.
Instead of bouncing with excitement as she had done earlier when he first offered support to her suggestion, Rapunzel now stares at her reflection in the mirror with a pensive look of hesitation. Eugene flickers a glance up at her from his place behind her back, where he's been tying ribbons around sections of her hair for what feels like forever. If he has it tied up in sections, he thinks it'll be easier to lug outside and throw out. Or burn. He's still not entirely sure where her animosities lie.
He ties the final one near the middle of her back, which would give a considerable foot or two in length to her hair once it's cut. This way she'll still be able to braid it or tie it up, if she wants. He places both hands squarely on her shoulders.
"Ready, pretty girl? This is a big deal."
Without providing him with any sort of affirmation, she nods quietly and apprehensively hands him his blade. She looks like she might be sick, pale-faced, as if the reflection in the mirror isn't really her. Eugene drops his hands at his sides.
"Hey." Her gaze snaps up to meet his in the mirror. "What's going on?"
She wrings her hands in front of herself and watches them intently. "What if.. what if something happens to you? What if she comes back and really needs me? What if somebody in town gets really hurt and needs me? What would I do? I'd be useless without my hair, Eugene."
He frowns. Try as they might to make it better, eighteen years of self-doubt and manipulation don't disappear over the span of a few weeks of freedom. Besides, there's the very real possibility the witch and the Stabbingtons are still out there, ready to strike at any moment. Her dexterity with her hair made her a formidable foe, and the benefits of having an instant healer on hand at any given moment were not left unappreciated.
But at the same time, she'd have no obligation to the witch without her hair, he has no obligation to his ex-accomplices with the crown returned to Corona, and Rapunzel is fully capable based purely on her smarts and strength alone, hair or not.
He drops down to the side of the stool to face her.
"It's yours, Rapunzel, and your decision to make. I won't like you any less with or without it. It's not my hair. It's not /her/ hair, it's yours. People got around just fine without the healing powers before. But if keeping it would make you feel happier, more confident and safe, keep it. You don't owe anything to anyone, and you certainly don't owe me any sort of explanation."
That familiar conviction returns to her eyes, gaining so much strength that when she turns her gaze back to the mirror it startles him a little. She reaches back to take the blade from him and he silently accepts her decision to keep the hair, turning to start untying the ribbons from her tresses at the end.
And then, while his back is turned, she slices it all off herself in one fell swoop, leaving her with a choppy brown bob ending just around her ears. The hair falls to the ground at his feet with a thump, and he watches the long river of gold turn to brown with great interest.
Rapunzel quietly sets the blade down on the vanity as she stares at herself for a few moments longer. He's blessed with the opportunity to watch her expressions change like the sun rises-- from shock, to acceptance, to joy, to pure elation. He stands behind the stool once again and sinks down so their faces are level in the reflection of the mirror.
"Well, look at that. Have I ever told you I have a thing for brunettes?"
She whips her head around to look at him, green eyes blazing, her smile not once leaving her face. "I thought you said it wouldn't change how you liked me."
"I said I wouldn't like you less. But this? I mean, Sunshine, come on." He runs his fingers through the choppy bits at the end of her neck. "It really suits you, the short look. I mean, really, it does."
"Yay," she says quietly, and the realization that this may be the first time she's ever done anything for herself in terms of appearance puts a bad taste in his mouth. She turns around in the stool again to properly face him. "I think she's dead."
Sometimes her mood changes make him dizzy. "Sorry?"
"My.. er... uh.. the woman.. from my tower. I think she died. She always said my hair kept her alive, and now it's gone. So she must be, too."
To be completely honest, Eugene doesn't care. The more he learns about that woman, the more he wishes he'd stumbled upon the tower sooner. But he's learning that Rapunzel is different, and her feelings toward other people aren't always abundantly clear. "And you're okay with that?"
"Honestly?" She turns back to face herself in the mirror, but the look of shock returns to her features much too quickly. Her face blanches, and she doesn't finish the thought.
They drag the dead hair out of the house together, and after a few minutes of silent, internal debate, she decides she wants to bury it. They heave it out to the forest, and he watches her with great concern as she takes a moment to say goodbye to it. When she stands, she looks directly in his eyes.
"I think Pascal liked me better with long hair. That's why he hasn't said anything."
The frog gives an affronted squeak from his perch on Eugene's shoulder. "I think that has more to do with the fact that he can't speak."
She doesn't reply for several long moments. "I can't decide if this was the right decision or not."
"Then why did you do it?"
The question seems to startle her. "I.. I don't know. It felt right?"
"In my experience--" he reaches out to affectionately tuck a short piece of chestnut colored hair behind her ear. "--if it feels like the right thing to do, it probably is."
She beams again, rivaling the gleaming sunset behind her in brilliance. Eugene gestures to their small home with his shovel. "Go ahead inside, I'll take care of this."
Pascal scuttles over to her shoulder when she leans up to kiss Eugene's cheek, and he watches as she turns on her heel and heads off for the house in a sprint.
He watches her depart for a moment and once again addresses the shovel.
How deep does one dig a grave for roughly seventy feet of hair?
When he enters the house again, hands stained with dirt, she's smiling at her reflection in a small, handheld mirror. Rapunzel catches his eye as he shuts the door behind himself.
"Look, Eugene! Look what I can do now!" She sets the mirror down and launches herself into a cartwheel across the floor. As she stumbles into a landing, she exclaims, "No tangles! I didn't even trip!"
"Very nice, Sunshine. You thinking of joining the circus?"
"No." She giggles and shakes her head back and forth so that the ends of her new haircut skate past her ears. "You don't like clowns, remember?"
"Yeah." He finds himself smiling. "But maybe I'd brave them for you."
She had the idea to return to her tower roughly two months after she cut her hair. There were some things-- books, her favorite paintbrush-- that she wanted to see again, and others-- namely the possibly deceased mother-- plaguing her curiosity.
When they arrive, he's too busy pondering how they're going to get up there to notice what she's stopped to stare at.
Once he does, he feels sick.
"That's her cloak," she says. She kicks it aside and gasps at the pile of dust underneath, reaching back for his hand. He reaches for her shoulders instead and pulls her back to stand flush against his chest until her breathing slows down to normal.
She stares at the cloak for an uncomfortable amount of time, gaze unreadable. Finally, she speaks.
"I guess I don't have a mother anymore."
He's not sure what to do. He's seen more inconsolable, newly orphaned children in his lifetime than one should, but he finds himself useless in comforting her, so instead he just sticks his hands in his pockets. "That's okay," he tells her. "I don't have one either."
"Is it wrong that I don't think I love her? Maybe I did, at some point, but not anymore. Not after I've seen all the ways she's lied about the world. How could she keep me from all that's out there if she really loved me? From people like you?"
Once again, he's at a loss for words.
She turns to look at him. "Should we bury the cloak? Like we buried the hair?"
He swallows the lump in his throat. "Tell me what you want to do."
He ends up digging the grave a few feet away from the tower, but she can't stand to watch, so she sets up with Pascal a few feet away with her back turned to him. She decides she doesn't want to go get her things from her room anymore, at least not today.
He never really thought he'd find himself in the business of burying inanimate objects, and yet here he is, already on his second one.
By sundown, the cloak is buried.
At the end of that month they decide to move towns. There isn't much left for them here, and it's gotten too quiet. The solitude was what once made the place so appealing, but now that they're spending weeks away from it at a time on their adventures, it's not much of a use, anymore.
The decision is finalized when Maximus finds them on one of his promised visits, leaving Eugene with a newspaper from the month they left Corona. It boasts the execution of the Stabbingtons, caught off the coast of the bay, and the assumed death of 'Flynn Rider' upon the return of the crown. He's not too sad to see any of them go. The loss of the Stabbingtons is just one last enemy to worry about, and as far as he's concerned, he's been well aware of the death of Flynn Rider.
Their new place is theirs, officially, so Rapunzel is given free reign to paint wherever she'd like. It's bigger, and the bed now fits them both. The east windowsill is just big enough for Rapunzel to assemble a tiny bed for Pascal which he adores, because the pampered little thing gets a perfect view of the sunrise each morning.
"Eugene?"
He doesn't look up from the woodpile he's stacking, preparing another log to chop. Their new neighbor offered pay if he cut up her wood supply for the winter, and he'll take any job he can come by. The honest life was not cheap. "Hm?"
"Can we get married?"
He slowly places the axe down on the ground, very glad he hadn't decided to raise it above his head just yet. "What?"
"Married. Do you know what that is? Because I didn't. But I was talking to Mrs. Greenville today and she told me her daughter's getting married and we're invited. So I asked her, what's that? And she said it's when two people like each other a lot so they decide to officially become a union." She manages to ramble all of that out without missing a beat, still beaming innocently at him from her seat in the grass a few feet away. "And I like you a lot."
She's wearing one of the new dresses their neighbor made her, a sage green color, weaving flower crowns with Pascal in the grass. Looking at her in that moment, he doesn't think he'd have any qualms about marrying her.
But this is a serious thing, and it comes with a lot of commitment, so he has to be careful about what he's going to say.
"It's a bit more complicated than that."
"How so?"
"It's... we don't really have any reason to, do we?"
She frowns.
"No, wait." He moves to sit next to her. "I didn't mean it like that. We already live together, why would we need to?"
"Because it'd be fun. And we'd be official. And people could call me Rapunzel Fitzherbert."
He grins. "I think most people already do assume we're married."
"So... I'm not seeing your argument here." She returns her attention to the daisy chain, raising it up and setting it down on top of his head.
"There is no argument." He adjusts the crown so it'll sit better. "Here, how about we go to Mrs. Greenville's daughter's wedding, then we'll see if it's something we want to do?"
She hums. "I like that."
He closes the distance between them with a quick kiss.
"Could I help you carry your groceries, sir?"
Eugene scoops two of the bags off the counter and considers his situation. He would have to make two trips otherwise, and he's sure Rapunzel wouldn't mind the surprise visit from Benji. The schoolchildren had taken a particular liking to her, and vice versa, as she spent her days here gathered with them in the town square telling stories. She's even gotten accustomed to bringing each kid in town back a trinket from their journeys. She's practically the gem of the town, loved by all, and none of it surprises him one bit.
"Sure, Benji, that'd be great."
Once they exit the shop, though, he notices a group of children huddled around something. One turns around and beckons to them. "Hey, Ben! Come check this out!"
Eugene steps in front of the boy as they makes their way over. In the middle of a patch of grass, three strange stalagmite-like rocks are poking out of the ground.
"Cool!" Benji leans closer, but as he does, the rocks start to glow and extend out towards him. Eugene drops the groceries in his haste, pulling the kids away from the phenomenon as they all gasp in unison.
"What is it?" One of the girls asks him.
Eugene takes another step back. "I don't know."
"You don't know? You know everything!"
"You guys should go home." He bends down to pick up the bags he dropped. "I mean it. I'll take another look, but you guys need to leave this to the adults, okay?"
"Black rocks?" Rapunzel echoes, trailing not too far behind him.
"I don't know. They just showed up, and they're growing."
She frowns, following him as he pushes in between the considerable crowd that's gathered around the area. There's a few gasps and whispers as they reach the clearing from concerned townspeople, but they disregard the noise. Rapunzel reaches out hesitantly toward the rocks.
"How strange. It's almost as if--"
She doesn't get to finish her thought. As her fingers come in contact with the point, a flash of light sends Eugene and the others careening backwards. He hits the ground, hard, on his side. When he finds his wind again, he stands and looks around for her.
"Rapunzel? Are you--"
He chokes on his words. Of all the things he didn't expect to see, he couldn't possibly have expected to see her standing there in shock, suddenly once again in possession of seventy feet of golden hair.