Chapter Text
Belle froze in shock in the doorway of the infirmary tent. No. No no no. Not Sir Rumpelstiltskin. Not her Sir Rumple. She had had nightmares that this could happen ever since she began volunteering on the frontlines in the medical triage station.
Her station was close enough to the frontlines that had seen him sometimes, striding about or leading men on horseback. (Her favorite moments were when he would take his helmet off for just a moment and she would see that divine silvery brown hair flying in the wind. Oh he had the most magnificent hair.) He always held himself with such command presence, his back so straight and proud. As well he should be: he was winning the ogre war. At this rate they would be married by spring; she hugged herself to think of it, the crisp starched linen of her nurse’s uniform crinkling against her body.
It had been a full month since he had last been at court. He had taken her battle strategies and employed them well (after, of course, arguing with her for days in the war room, the two of them bent over the maps, moving pieces back and forth, discussing the benefits of open versus closed truncation and all manner of other military maneuvers, much to the bemusement of the other people at court).
She worried about him everyday. It was easier now that she was out here too, she could keep an eye on him, and she could make herself useful. Speaking of which…
Nurse ‘Annabella’ gathered her med kit and straightened the apron on her uniform. It was just another patient being borne toward her on the litter. Another war-torn, bloodied young man for her to patch up and send on his way. Just another one. And the fact that this one was her beloved, her intended whose blood stained the stretcher…it was of no consequence—she could not allow it to be or she would lose herself to panic. Perhaps he wouldn’t even be able to recognize her in her disguise anyway.
“Lady Belle!”
Her eyes went wide. “Hush, sir, I am no lady. I am Nurse Anna.” Her eyes widened but she couldn’t bring herself to turn away. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. “Orderlies! We need help! This knight must be stripped of his armor, I need to see how severe the wounds are.”
She dared to meet his gaze as orderlies rushed to do her bidding. He gave her a nod and a smile that lit up his whole face, and gave her hope that he wasn’t so badly injured after all.
Belle had him placed in the furthest corner of the infirmary tent, hoping against hope to keep him out of the matron’s view. If Matron knew they had such a high-profile patient she would want to tend to him herself, and frankly Belle didn’t trust the woman’s big sausage-y fingers to take the best care of her Rumple.
She thanked the orderlies as she dismissed them, grateful for their help. If she had had to be the one to undress him…well, the scandal alone could have been their undoing—if her shaking hands had cooperated, which right now she doubted.
“My Lady Belle—” he began.
“Hush, Sir Rumpelstiltskin, I am no lady today. I told you, I am Nurse Anna.” Her eyes pleaded with him to play along. She took heart that at least his voice sounded steady and strong. The orderlies had placed a sheet over him, but she could tell from a quick glance down that there were patches of soaked-through blood all over his underclothes.
He dropped his voice until only she could hear. “Anna?”
“From Annabella”
“You will always be a lady, Nurse Anna.”
She blushed and batted at him.
He grinned, and Belle found she could breathe again. A smile like that—he really couldn’t be too badly wounded.
“Why does the knight keep calling you “my lady”?” Her young assistant Maerwynn showed up at her elbow, making Belle jump. Maerwynn eyed her curiously as she set down a bowl of warm water and some clean rags.
Belle tried for a nonchalant shrug. “Must just be delirious. We should check for blood loss and fever.”
Maerwynn nodded sagely. For such a slip of a girl she had seen her share of battles. “What do you need, nurse?”
“I’ll need at least one more bowl like that when you can, Mae, and your help when you can spare the time.”
She sighed with relief when Maerwynn went away again. She would need the girl’s help for the cuts she could tell must be on his lower half, from the specks of blood already seeping through the sheet, it wouldn’t be proper for one nurse alone to tend to a man with such injuries in such…places. She was glad of Maerwynn, the girl had a steady hand and a quick mind. But for now Belle needed a moment alone with her knight.
Well, he was not yet her knight, they had had no time for courting yet, the ogre war had come down on them too fast, but Sir Rumpelstiltskin was more than holding good to his word. He had all but single-handedly driven them back, and if the plans they had outlined together had worked, the war might nearly be at an end.
“Lady Belle, please. This is hardly a safe place for a princess.”
“Shh! Sir Rumpelstiltskin, my father would kill me if he knew! Please, I cannot sit in that castle doing nothing. I need to help. I seek your discretion, sir.”
He gazed at her earnestly. “Then you shall have it, my lady. I do understand the need to help.”
They shared a serious look. Belle waited for an ensuing lecture about how when she was his to command there would be none of this silliness—even Gaston was given to such a speech now and again. She had yet to meet a man who didn’t think he knew better than she did how and where she spend her time.
“Forgive me, my lady, I do worry, though, about your safety.”
He stopped. She waited, but he did not continue. That was it? No pronouncements about obedience? No laying down of the rules she would be under when she was in his household?
She cleared her throat. “Are you very badly wounded, sir?”
He shook his head with a small, chagrinned smile, as if embarrassed to be in an infirmary tent at all. “I tussled with an ogre in the blackthorn bushes. Mostly just those darned thorns got under my armor, tiny surface wounds and nothing more. I really shouldn’t be taking up your time, Lady Bel—”
She hushed him with a finger over his lips as nurses doing rounds near them gave her curious glances.
“My apologies,” he mumbled against her finger, but when she went to withdraw it, his hand closed so very gently around her wrist.
She gasped, blushing from the roots of her hair all down her chest when he pressed his amazingly soft lips against her fingertip.
“Sir Rumpelstiltskin!” she whispered furiously.
He released her immediately. He hadn't been holding her all that hard, she could have pulled away at any time.
“I overstepped my bounds, I am sorry, my la— Nurse Belle.”
“It’s Nurse Anna.” She pulled up a stool next to him with a trembling hand, determined to focus on her job.
“Of course, Nurse Anna. Forgive me? Perhaps I am indeed delirious.” The look he gave her belied any such notion. He even had a twinkle in his eye.
“I forgive you,” she muttered, trying to suppress a smile. He really was adorable.
Belle shook herself. She needed to tend to his wounds. His brave façade aside, she could see blood soaking his underclothes where the sheet did not quite cover him. If it wasn’t for his calm—even jovial—demeanor, she would be frightened for him. As it was, she needed her wits about her.
She could feel his eyes on her, but she pointedly avoided looking at him as she gathered all the clean bandages, salves and ointments she needed, along with a generous supply of iodine to clean his wounds. He was just too…distracting.
“I like the nurse’s uniform,” he ventured.
She looked at him and saw a small apologetic smile playing about his lips.
“Thank you, sir,” she said primly. “Now tell me, is it just thorn scratches do you think? I can start patching you up but I don’t want you bleeding to death from a larger wound while I’m fixing minor abrasions.”
“Just scratches, milad—Nurse Anna.”
She bit her lip, catching herself staring into his eyes again. “Give your arm, please sir.”
He obediently held it out. He was still dressed head to toe in underclothes, although they were shredded in places. Mostly by brambles and thorns, but some of the rents looked deeper. Ogre claws.
She sucked in a breath.
“It’s not safe out here, nurse.”
She pressed her lips together. “I think you just defeated the worst of them. You and your men came over the hill from Garland Cove?”
“Yes m—”
She silenced him with a look.
He had the grace to look sheepish. “Yes, Nurse Anna. Although if you don’t mind me saying, your command of troop movements is sophisticated for a nurse.”
She arched an eyebrow at him, ignoring his smirk, and blew a stray curl of hair out of her eyes, unable to spare a hand to brush it away. “Sir Rumpelstiltskin, I’m afraid this shirt will have to come off, there’s just no salvaging it, and the remnants of fabric are getting in the way of my work.”
She held up her bandages as if to reinforce her point, feeling a need to emphasize she wasn’t trying to deprive him of his clothes just to ogle his well-muscled chest.
He obliged her quickly, sitting up and making efficient work of the remains of his undershirt.
Her mouth fell open and she was just grateful the shirt was over his eyes at that moment as she drank in the sight before her.
He was…beautiful. Beautiful and covered in scrapes. Oh where was Maerwynn? Belle was caught between wanting the girl as a chaperone (because she was most definitely have very un-nurse-like thoughts right then) and also hoping Maerwynn got distracted (as she frequently was wont to do) and never returned.
She swallowed hard and looked down before he could catch her staring, focusing on rinsing out the rags in an iodine solution, soaking then squeezing them several times for good measure, and to recover her composure. He didn’t even flinch as she applied the first of the rags to the deepest cut she could see—thankfully on an innocuous location: his lower arm.
“The cove is clear now, sir?” She was fishing about for something to say, trying valiantly to recall the battle strategy in the scenario of securing Garland Cove. She made the rag into a makeshift tourniquet, trying to staunch the last of the bleeding.
Rumpelstiltskin still didn’t wince, only nodded. “All the way back to the orange groves.”
She paused in her ministrations to beam at him. “Then you’ve cut off their last supply line! Oh Sir Rumple, you did it! The last of them will be cock-a-hoop in just a few days!”
He blinked at her. “Am I more gravely injured than I had believed, Nurse Anna, or did you just say cock-a-hoop? And did you just call me Rumple?”
Her hand almost flew to her mouth before she remembered not to take pressure off the tourniquet. She settled for averting her eyes and worrying at her lip instead. “Umm…”
“Hey, it’s all right, my lady.” His voice had dropped too low for anyone else to hear in the hub bub of the infirmary tent
“Sir, um, if you’ve ever seen an ogre without his grub, uh, I mean, proper sustenance, he seems to sort of…” She tilted her body over to the side, anchoring herself with her grip on his arm. “…Move sideways. Listing like a ship. Canting on an incline.”
As she moved, the errant curl escaped again, tickling her face.
“Like roll and pitch?” He was smiling at her. His warm hand moved to tentatively cover hers, securing her hold and making her feel more stable even though she was tipped over to the side.
She lit up. Instead of berating or mocking her for her nervous habit of using too many words, he was joining in. “Yes exactly, Sir Rumpelstiltskin! Pitched to one side, all of them. All…slanty.” She couldn’t think about how good his hand felt on hers, or she would lose coherence entirely.
He frowned slightly.
Belle froze. “What’s wrong, did I hurt you sir?”
“No, of course not. You are very gentle, my…dear. It’s just, well, it distresses me to think you have seen ogres so close, even those in the dazed state you describe.”
She almost rolled her eyes at him. “I’m fine, sir. I’m safe enough.”
He inclined his head in acquiescence. “Also, my…Nurse Anna, it goes against my every courtly instinct not to address you with a proper title or honorific. It feels worse when you are calling me Sir with every breath.”
“Oh.” Belle had to concede his point. She blew the frustrating lock of hair out of her eyes again. “Well…I could…”
Her voice trailed off when his hand came up, and very carefully, with a reverence that should have seemed out of place in the chaos of a wartime triage shelter, he swept the lock of hair back from her face, tucking it into one of her hairpins with concentrated gentleness.
Belle was at a loss for words for a full minute. Instead she just clung to him arm, feeling his strong and steady heartbeat under her hands.
“I…um, thank you,” she managed eventually, remembering just in time not to ‘sir’ him.
He smiled gently. “My pleasure, my lady.”
“So, uh,” fighting for words was difficult when all she could think of was how loudly her own heartbeat drummed in her ears. His touch had been exquisite and she longed to feel it again. “How should I address you, Sir?”
His lips quirked. “I did like ‘Rumple’.”
She blushed hotly. The last thing she had meant to do was let her pet name slip out.
“I think you may have to put up with being Sir Rumpelstiltskin for now. A term of endearment might arouse the suspicions of the other nurses.”
He caught his breath and his eyes held hers. For a moment Belle just gazed at him. He was so handsome, his eyes drawing her in.
“Is that what it is, Lady Belle? A term of endearment?”
She swallowed. He disarmed her so easily. “Hush,” she whispered, embarrassed. She returned to her task, hissing in disapproval (mostly at herself for being so blatant in her affections).
“Some of these cuts are deep, sir. What did you do, roll around in the brush a few times for good measure?!”
“I like it when you scold me, my lady,” he whispered conspiratorially.
Her enflamed cheeks grew hotter still. Belle had to remind herself it was bad form to hit a man with a rolled up bandage when he was already injured. She settled for dabbing at him with the iodine. He should have been squirming away from the sting, but he bore it well, only a tightening around his eyes giving away his discomfort.
“What is this tincture?” he asked, his voice slightly rough.
She looked at him assessing. Perhaps the pain did bother him after all but he maintained a brave face in front of a lady. “Iodine, good sir.”
“It staunches the bleeding?”
“The hydrochloride does that, it’s in the tourniquets. I save it for the larger open wounds as it’s hard to come by, and the sting is even sharper. Iodine and hydrochloride both disinfect, to keep infection from taking hold.”
He was nodding, looking at her like she was angel. She couldn’t tell if he was impressed with her knowledge or merely glad to keep her talking and thus keep him distracted from the hundreds of little agonies he must be in. Her heart went out to him and she found herself stroking the hair back off his forehead before she could stop herself.
“My Lady Belle,” he whispered, as if sharing a secret between them.
She licked her lips. “My lord,” she whispered back—her own secret in return.
She continued tending to him, first regaling him with a plethora of herbal cures (if it was distraction he wanted, she could certainly provide him with lengthy lectures on the medicinal properties of Marchland botanicals)—this plant root for analgesic pain relief, this leaf extract to hasten healing sleep—then relaxing into a comfortable silence as the painful part of patching him up came to an end.
She fancied he too enjoyed the quiet that fell between them, him watching her work, helping when he could. When she had cleaned and covered all the abrasions on his arms (and spent extra time on his strong shoulders, rubbing in healing ointment several times for good measure, enjoying the tiny moans and whimpers her hands elicited from him from time to time) it was time to deal with a particularly nasty gash on his stomach.
“This may sting worse than the rest, sir. If you wish, you may hold my hand and squeeze if the pain becomes too much.”
She expected him to decline, but to her surprise, he held out his hand to her. His long fingers wrapped around her much smaller hand. Everything about the way they fit together just felt so right. Belle had never experienced a feeling like it in all her life.
She leaned over him, gently squeezing the disinfectant-soaked fabric over his trim waistline, trying to keep her mind clear despite what his proximity was doing to her. He sucked in a harsh breath when the first few drops of iodine hit the stomach wound.
Belle’s eyes met his intense gaze and her mouth opened to reassure him just as his muscles tensed, causing him to tug on her arm, bringing her even closer to him. Their faces ended up mere inches apart. As if hypnotized, Belle swayed even closer, drunk on his nearness.
“Oh, Sir Rumple.”
“My lady,” he breathed.
He was so close…she could just…
His posture straightened slightly, his eyes flashed in apology, and behind her she heard Maerwynn’s soft steps approaching.
Pressing her lips together, Belle recovered herself as much as she could, willing her hands not to shake.