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Belle was shocked when she opened the door to the shop only to find it completely overrun by puppies. Rumplestiltskin was a dog person. She had long ago figured that out, even if he would never ever admit it out loud. Longing glances at Pongo, hesitating just a little too long when they walked by the animal shelter. Oh, he was a dog person alright.
But puppies?
She squatted down to pet one and found herself suddenly inundated with them. Puppies in her lap. Puppies grabbing onto her hair. Puppy kisses on her cheeks and one determined little guy who jumped up and nipped at her nose.
“Rumple?” she called out and was greeted with a few choice curse words from the other room. “Help?” she said again, though really this was not something that she needed help for. Really, who didn’t like to be completely overrun with puppies?
Several litters worth really.
She counted no less than twenty of them, puppies of all sizes and colors.
Rumplestiltskin finally ducked his head around the corner and she was greeted by yet another curse word. “I thought you weren’t going to be out of the library until at least noon.” He sounded exasperated and maybe even a little bit annoyed.
“I can leave,” she said and tried to crawl toward the door, though the sea of puppies, which she was quite sure was growing by the second, stopped her in her path.
“No, no, there’s no need for that.”
She turned back to him, tried to turn over and sit on the ground, heard the squeak and gave up. Barely managing to stand, she had to push her way through the puppies to get to Rumplestiltskin, who helped to steady her as she came close to him. “What is going on here?”
He muttered something under his breath and turned away from her. And she knew. Of course she did. As more puppies seemed to appear out of nowhere, the group of twenty growing to thirty and maybe forty, puppies everywhere, pulling on tapestries, knocking over expensive items, she knew.
“What did you do?” And she couldn’t help but be amused as she watched them wreak havoc on his shop.
“The perfect puppy,” he muttered.
“What?”
“I wanted to create the perfect puppy for you.” And he looked sheepish.
“These are magical puppies?”
“The spell went wrong.” He sounded not only contrite but irritated.
“Obviously.” She tried not to laugh.
“Can you reverse it?” She watched as yet another puppy seemed to make its way into the group, taller than the rest, shaggy. It hadn’t been there before but suddenly it was followed by four littermates and the pile grew just a little bit more.
“It has to run its course.”
“And that means?”
Rumplestiltskin glanced over her shoulder at the increasing number of puppies. “About another forty puppies give or take a few.”
“Forty?” Belle said, looking around her with dismay.
“For a total of a hundred.”
“And then?”
“Then I see if I can send them back. Or we have a hundred puppies to find homes for.” He gave a little shrug but she glanced at the puppies and felt her heart sink. They’d be looking for homes for years for this many puppies. Maybe everyone in town would like a little Valentine’s Day present?
“What exactly did you do?”
She watched as his cheeks reddened just slightly. “I might have included in the spell that I wanted it to be one hundred percent the perfect puppy.”
“For me? You were creating a puppy for me?”
“So you get one hundred puppies! Surprise!” He waved one hand out into his shop and tried to smile.
And Belle just laughed. And laughed some more. Finally she leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Maybe we should just go to the animal shelter and find a completely non-magical puppy there.”
His answering snort and “Of course, dear,” warmed her heart even more than one hundred perfectly wriggly little puppies.