Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Of all the things a person could be, Belle was not dull. Clumsy, and a bit naive sometimes, sure- but never dull. Which was why she could not understand why her father insisted she marry Gaston- much less keep up the charade of being in love with him by going on these very public dinners. There was a war going on- a war, and one that she felt she should be doing something about, at that- but her father insisted on hailing her and Gaston a carriage just as the sun was setting, as he did twice a week despite her protests.

Today, though, she had convinced her father to let her walk into town for their dinner- and then, later, convinced Gaston to let her walk alone, though that took much more persuading. But she was determined: she would not be packed neatly into a carriage and sent on her way like the dutiful wife she knew Gaston was hoping she would turn out to be. But years of watching her mother, who always maintained dignity and composure, had taught her one thing: if she had to tolerate a courtship- and eventually, a marriage- she would at least retain the freedom of walking herself.

And so she had set off about an hour early, meaning to stop by the book seller on her way into town. She had skipped tea time, a fact that hardly pleased her father- but there was always tomorrow for tea, and besides- she thought the fresh air might do her some good.

Earlier in the week, in a desperate act, she had borrowed a book containing all the realm’s knowledge about ogres. Of course, she had already read it months earlier, when only whispers of the mere idea of ogres were floating around the market. Currently, she was despairing at the lack of new information, and thus, lack of a breakthrough about what they could do to turn the tide of the war.

There was, of course, what her father seemed determined to do, had already done…

But she didn’t dare think of that. There was too much about that man (if he could even be called a man at all, really) that remained shrouded in mystery, in darkness. Who could say if this sorcerer was to be trusted or not? Unfortunately for Belle, that very thought had been nagging at her without end for quite some time.

A familiar voice pulled Belle away from her thoughts. “Is that our Belle I see, with her nose stuck in a book?” It was the baker, sitting on her front porch. Belle turned her attention to the older woman and offered her a smile and a wave, even while the baker stuck her nose up at Belle.

After a moment, the baker’s husband joined her on the porch. They murmured to themselves, snide comments about the strange girl that lived up the path with her father, making no attempt to hush their voices on Belle’s account.

Belle supposed she was used to it by now- the strange looks she got from her neighbors. And she didn’t blame them- she really was nothing like them. They had been calling her any variation of “odd” since she was old enough to understand what it meant.

She had had friends as a girl; classmates, or else the daughters of other merchants. But the school girls had long since grown up and inevitably begun to work, while the merchants’ daughters were slowly but surely being married off to other merchants’ sons and making a home in their husbands’ villages- just as Belle was to do.

That was, of course, until Gaston came along.

It seemed a special kind of curse that the terms of her own marriage made it so Belle would not be leaving her father’s property. She had a hunch that he had planned it that way, but the stubborn old man would never admit to it.

She’d made peace with it long ago, though, and found her friends instead inside of her books, where she could travel the world as much as she was able from her bedroom. Or, on days when the seamstress was running behind, or maybe it was raining, Belle would sit in the little bookstore in the corner of town with Robert, the bookseller. On these days, he would make tea, and they would read, excitedly stopping one another to discuss the developments in their respective stories before continuing on to the next page.

Sometimes it felt to Belle that Robert was the one person in her village that she could call a friend. “Back already, Belle? I thought that one might keep you longer.” He called out upon hearing the brass jingling of the bell above the door. Robert’s store looked as it always did, with careful purple curtains hung over the windows, thin enough that the light they let in cast everything in lavender.

She smiled at the back of his head, amused. “You haven’t even turned around to see that it’s me yet. How can you be sure?” She asked. And on cue, Robert turned to face her, a smile wide on his face.

“You’re the only one that visits these days,” he replied, and both he and Belle felt a heavy weight settle itself in the room. They both knew the drop in business was not exclusive to Robert’s shop; and they both knew the reason was the very frightening number of casualties being reported in the war.

Belle set her book on the counter with a very heavy, very serious thump. “How has it been for the townspeople lately?” She asked, though she was sure she would have been able to guess. Her stomach turned as Robert’s lips thinned and his head shook, telling her more of their grave situation than any of his words could have.

“We’re losing more each week, while the ogres seem to only grow in number. I don’t expect we’ll last much longer, if I’m to be honest. I think we’d need a miracle, but where do you find those these days anyway?”

Belle nodded, equally as hopeless about what was to be done to save their people. Tomorrow, her father would be meeting with some of the other merchants, as well as a handful of soldiers from the front, who would no doubt want hope.

Belle still wasn’t sure what action they would be advising their people to take- and she knew Robert knew that too. But still, he offered her a reassuring smile as he placed his book back on the shelf. In an act of mercy, Robert busied himself with the books, dusting and reshelving much more diligently than was truly necessary. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to talk about it- it was that neither had the words. So instead, Belle remarked that she was going to be late for dinner, and they said a relieved goodbye, both glad to be rid of the tension of acknowledging how dire things had gotten.

As she made her way down the path from the book shop to the cafe, she couldn’t help but wonder what really must be done to save their village. She knew Robert was right- these ogres would kill their entire village without a second thought. But she still couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea of using dark magic to help them. Surely that would cost them more than just a promise of gold, right?

What if Robert had been correct, and they needed a miracle- but found themselves instead with a kind of twisted, evil magic?

So in the end, it really wasn’t her fault that she wasn’t concentrating on Gaston’s monologue during dinner- she had much more pressing things on her mind.

Belle could feel herself nodding along, giving reassurances to her dinner partner that she knew were ingenuine; the ghost of a smile when he said something she knew he thought was funny. A drawn out nod of the head when she was pretending to consider some point he was making. Less and less interested hmms of agreement while he filled the air around them with words that never held her attention (and likely weren’t meant to in the first place, if Gaston’s apparent love of his own voice was any indication).

She just didn’t understand how a person could be so bland.

Gaston was beautiful, sure, but he was also a vapid and tedious person with which to spend one’s time. While out on these dinner dates (that she had never asked for and often didn’t enjoy in the slightest), Belle would find herself daydreaming about any number of things to pass the time- today being no different.

It had been evident to her that there was no easy path forward for some time now. But she couldn’t help wondering if she really was doing everything she could. It was a thought as perplexing as it was nuanced- if she attempted to lead a group into battle, wouldn’t they all die? But if nobody fought, wouldn’t that be the outcome regardless?

“...Don’t you think?”

Belle blinked, pulling herself back to reality, to see Gaston staring at her with a wide grin, obviously having just made some witty remark that Belle couldn’t be bothered to ask him to repeat. Instead, she let out a small chuckle and waited for Gaston to return to his rambling. But instead, he furrowed his eyebrows, and his face took on a much gentler expression.

“Belle? What’s wrong? I feel like you’ve been in your own head lately.”

Belle pursed her lips, weighing the cost of confiding in Gaston. Despite his complete foolishness, Gaston did appear to have genuine feelings for Belle. And when he was actually paying attention to her, he would often make halfway decent observations about whatever might be troubling her.

At last, she sighed and figured the only thing worse than staying silent now would be finishing this dinner without having said a word on a topic of actual importance.

“I’m just thinking about the war again.” She confessed, letting her chin fall to rest on her hand. “I don’t know what the right thing to do is.”

“That again? My love, you know we’re doing all we can do. Your father has even sent out for… him. What more can be done to set your mind at ease?”

Belle had to stop herself from wrinkling her nose at the endearment from Gaston before she responded. “I know Father sent for him… I’m just wondering if that’s going to be enough- whether he helps us or not.” It came out as a whisper, as if in mentioning her doubts she drew into question not only this all-powerful sorcerer, but also her own father, who had made the final decision to explore this possibility in the first place.

“But of course it’s going to be enough,” Gaston said, sounding more perplexed. “What would make you doubt that?”

“It’s… it’s just that, aren’t you worried about what someone called the Dark One could do to us? Because I’ve been looking through my books, and I might have been too quick to suggest-”

“There you go again with those books, Belle. You’re such a funny girl,” Gaston grabbed Belle’s hands in his own and gave them a pat, as if she were simply a child letting her imagination run wild again. “Darling, those things only trouble you. Just trust in me that this will work out for the best. And if you can’t trust me-” Gaston added, already sensing the objections on Belle’s tongue “-trust your father. By this time tomorrow, the village will be safe. All will be well.” The words left a spoiled taste in her mouth- a reminder that this was how it usually went when she attempted to connect with her fiance.

Belle watched Gaston begin his rambling again as soon as she was quiet long enough for him to think she was done talking. And so Belle sat, bored and perplexed, until their plates were clear and Gaston was offering her his jacket. She declined, wrapping herself in her own coat instead, but offering Gaston a polite grin as thanks. She thought she really wouldn’t need a jacket anyway- the walk to the carriage was short, and the cold season had not quite set in yet.

The carriage ride home was blissfully quiet, a pleasant surprise that Belle did not question. She stared out the window, finding the constellations she had learned as a child, dreaming of an end to this war, an opportunity to travel the world, until they clattered to a stop, breaking Belle out of her reverie.

Gaston climbed out of the carriage first so that he could hold the door open for her, as he always did. And, as she always did, Belle turned to thank him for the gesture- and at last noticed the displeased look on his face, as if something had been bothering him for some time. Sheepishly, she realized he must have been upset the entire carriage ride home- hence the silence.

“Gaston? What’s wrong?”

The man sighed. “I know this war is frightening you-”

“-I wouldn’t say I’m frightened by it-”

Gaston held up his hand to quiet her. “I know it’s worrying you, then. And I just wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help ease your mind.”

Belle was taken aback at the offer. While it was not unlike Gaston to attempt to comfort her, he rarely was so thoughtful in doing so. Usually, she could expect an off-handed comment said only for the purpose of getting her to focus on him so that he could continue his babbling, as had been the case at dinner earlier. Not exactly trusting of his motivations this time, Belle stood, silent, until Gaston spoke again.

“It’s not unknown to me that you would prefer the company of another.” Belle opened her mouth to disagree with him- even if it was transparently a lie- but Gaston stopped her once again. “I know it’s true, my Belle. And while it makes me sad- I won’t deny it- I do think you’ll see the good in me someday. As for right now, I hope you’ll believe me when I say everything will turn out. There is a way out of this war- we just haven’t seen it yet.”

Belle nodded, trying to make herself believe him, but she just couldn’t. “I just think at this point, we need a miracle. And I don’t know where to get one,” she confessed, echoing the words of Robert that had been so heavily weighing on her all evening.

“Then we’ll find a miracle,” he said, shrugging as if it were an easy feat.

“You make it sound so simple,” Belle sighed, wishing for just a moment that she could feel just as unbothered by all of this as Gaston seemed to be. She supposed it was easy to feel indifferent about death when you had been raised to be a callous, unsympathetic hunter.

“I simply trust that there is a way, and that we will stop at nothing until we find it,” he said, puffing out his chest as he talked, as if he had said something clever and was proud of himself for it. Belle sighed, understanding that once again, Gaston had returned to his usual pompous self.

“I hope you’re right,” she said, although the words felt heavy and impossible. They walked back to their respective rooms in relative silence- Gaston attempting a goodnight kiss at Belle’s door that she politely pretended not to notice, turning away instead to let herself into her room with a curt “goodnight” thrown over her shoulder. She leaned against the door long after she had closed it, listening for Gaston’s boots on the floor as he walked away. And then finally, she took a breath.

And although the night was quiet and comfortable, Belle found that sleep evaded her the harder she tried to find it. Her mind was stuck on how, exactly, they were going to fix this- and what, exactly, it was going to cost.

Chapter Text

It was a funny thing, watching their son grow up.

In Gideon, Rumple saw glimpses of his Bae; a most welcome and warming surprise. He had never imagined he would be a parent again, and he found that sometimes he needed to sit down, to consider how much of his life, of himself, had changed- and how much his boy proved that.

He would watch Gideon as a baby squinting at his food, struggling to pick it up, and remember when Baelfire had done the same. Or Gideon would laugh, holding up some trinket or another, and Rumple would swear he heard the same laugh before, in another life. And then, when he was older, he would see the loose curls down Gideon’s neck and almost call for his firstborn, only to stop short with his hand already up to his mouth.

He saw Belle in him too, of course (there was no surprise in this- inevitably, irrevocably, he saw her in everything good). He saw her in the way Gideon flew through his books as he grew, occasionally even swapping trivia with his mother while Rumple looked on fondly. Or when Gideon was a boy, seemingly tied with a string to the garden gate, unable to leave the flowers and the caterpillars alone even long after his mother had gone in for tea.

It was a nice life they had built- an exciting one, with more love than he knew he would ever deserve to fill the time in their quiet moments.

Nevertheless, it took him until Gideon’s first birthday to bring up what he knew Belle thought of daily- and even that felt too fast for him. He remembered one day waking with a sudden realization that while the years had always seemed to stack up without him paying much mind, this one in particular seemed to pass before he could even blink.

The concept of leaving Storybrooke- of separating himself from the control he had spent lifetimes crafting- was horrifying to him. Several times, he asked himself what it would all have been for- running from the war, losing Bae, spending centuries crafting a curse- if he were to just leave the power behind now. But still, he knew his wife wanted to see the world. And he knew he wanted to see her happy. And he was finally trying to make the right choices.

So, on Gideon’s first birthday, he had surprised her.

They had gone all over, very quickly at first- traveled through towns and cities and kingdoms and realms, settling for a time between each destination to “catch their breath,” as Belle often said. It was in those small breaks that Gideon would have a tutor brought in, and would make friends with some of the other boys in town, often coming home muddy from ball games being played the way young children can be counted on to play them. Belle would spend her days painting, or reading, or gardening. Occasionally, she would make friends with the mothers of the boys Gideon brought home for dinner, and she would write to them.

Once, when Gideon was off with his friends, and they had finished dinner, Belle had tried to teach him how to knit. Given his propensity for weaving and spinning, he was expecting to be great at it, even boasting about how he might not even need instruction. But to Belle’s amusement, Rumple could hardly maneuver the needles, often dropping stitches and getting his yarn tangled. He had given up after a third failed attempt; Belle had gone on to knit hats for all of them for the upcoming winter.

And so they would live little lives in these moments, catching their breath. And then fall would come, or whatever was closest to it, and they would leave their life behind once more, falling headfirst into whichever adventure caught their fancy next.

The longest they had stayed in one place had been a modest kingdom called Nuria, where they spent much longer than usual under the never-ending sun that the land boasted. And although it had proved to be an exaggeration- there was a sunset and a sunrise marking each day, though the darkness never lasted long- it had been wonderful. Belle had worked in a bookstore on the east side of the kingdom, coming home each day bursting with stories about all the new people she had met.

Gideon was enrolled in the local boys’ school, where he joined the fencing club (within days he was boasting truly impressive sword skills, a testament to his father that he wore with pride). And through some tournament or another he had met a girl named Flora, and Belle and Rumple had spent many days exchanging knowing looks over their son, who was caught in young love.
And Rumple, to his surprise, found great joy in simply walking the kingdom, observing. He had spent so long as an immortal- as a power more than a person, really- that he almost had to remember how to be human again.

There were little things that he found he had missed; waving at the children that passed by with their mothers, eating dinner with his wife after a day of being apart, chatting with the baker while you felt for which pocket you had left your last coins in. It was a relief to settle back into humanness, though it took him a long while to admit it.

They left Nuria only after two years spent in the beautiful sunlight, and were sad to leave it behind them even after that long.

In the end, it was all this traveling that brought them here, to a quiet little corner of the universe called, quaintly, the Edge of Realms. Here, they had built their home together- by hand, as his love requested. It was tireless, and rewarding, and then tireless once again. But he never doubted that it was worth it.

They had shared dances far less grand than he felt she deserved in quiet expanses of flooring in their living room, had had feasts fit for kings set out on their modest table. Here, he wasn’t dark, or evil, or a villain- here, he had no need to be, had learned that he had never had reason to be. Here, in the cottage at the edge of the world, a man had loved his wife.

And here, he had lost her.

The soft clink of a tea cup being set on the table in front of him brought him out of his reverie. “Here, Papa,” Gideon said, softly. He sat down across from his father at the table, staring into his own cup of tea without taking a sip.

It was supposed to be a day of celebration. Gideon was home for his semester break, and finally was able to get away from his responsibilities long enough for a proper visit- unlike the rushed weekends they often got, where most days were spent traveling and nervously calculating how much time had passed in the Land Without Magic, where Gideon studied. There was to be a feast, and laughter, and tales of Gideon’s time away.

But instead, they dug a grave today. They put her in her favorite sweater- the blue one that Rumple gifted her for her birthday years earlier. And they had brushed her hair and kissed her forehead one last time. And they said goodbye.

It was a familiar motion afterward, to make tea, and so Gideon had done it, and Rumple had not stopped him. But neither man wanted tea now- neither had wanted tea to begin with- and so they watched the leaves swirl around in the bottoms of the mugs instead, both searching for words to explain, to understand what had happened. Eventually, Gideon broke the silence.

“I passed all my exams for the winter semester,” he said, trying to shrug as he announced it, dancing around the fact that he had been coming home excited to share the news with his mother, who had helped him study just weeks earlier. But Rumple smiled, gracious, allowing Gideon to pretend his comment was superficial.

“I’m proud of you, son.” And he was.

Gideon tried to smile. “I know you are,” he said, tears filling his eyes. “And I know she would be, too.” Rumple only nodded at this, finding it far too painful to think of his Belle. Instead, he changed the subject.

“How did your friends do, then? On the tests?” It was a dumb question, they both knew it- but, then again, Belle had always been the conversationalist.

But Gideon, who was equally as willing to play along with his father’s charade of normalcy, put some thought into his answer. “They did well. William got lower marks than me in a couple things, but no surprise there, right? And Flora passed too, of course, but she spent days worrying about it before.” The story cut off as if it wasn't the end, but Gideon wasn’t sure what the end was, so instead the words tapered off until it was as if they had never been said at all.

There was a long silence where both men tried, and failed, to come up with anything else to talk about. But their loss seemed to sit at the table with them, refusing to be ignored, looming over their conversation. Eventually, with tears in his eyes, Gideon broke down. “What do we do now, Papa?”

“Oh, son,” Rumple breathed. There was more to be said- surely there was more- but he couldn’t find it. Every thought of his wife echoed in his head; every mention of her cut into him and left a deep ache. He wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t want to have to think about it; didn’t want to have to confront this reality.

“Papa,” Gideon said, his voice shaky. “I loved her so much.”

Rumple sat, staring into his tea even though his vision had already gone blurry from the tears. “I love her too,” he choked, almost gagging on the words. He didn’t know how to miss someone this way, didn’t know how to amend his sentences about her to be in the past tense; he didn’t want to know how.

“So what do we do?”

“Please, son. Let’s talk about something else.” Rumple could feel his breath shortening, becoming more shallow, and his heart started pounding in his chest, harder and harder, until the sound became a
roar in his ears. He remembered the first time he lost Belle in this way, years ago when they still lived in the castle, and marveled at his ability, that time, to have recovered.

He didn’t see how that was possible now.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. They were supposed to have more time.

But Gideon wasn’t privy to his father’s inner monologue. Gideon hadn’t lost anybody in his life yet- at least, not like this. And he couldn’t bring himself to understand- “What else is there to talk about?” He wailed, throwing his arms up in the air in a way he had never done, even as a child. He thought about how his mother used to calm him, a comforting hand on his shoulder, an inquisitive look on her face. He thought of how much he missed her now, how he had never noticed just how often she knew exactly what to say- and how often his father did not. He knew Rumple was miserable where he sat, that he would talk gladly of anything but the woman they had both loved and lost.

“I just miss her so much,” he uttered, less as a conversation piece and more a cry to the universe, a plea for mercy, as if he might have his mother back if only he sounded broken enough.

And Rumple did try, to his credit. His mouth hung open, hopeful that the right words might fall into it so that he would know what to say to his son. But all he saw when he looked at Gideon was his wife, his Belle. He saw her brown hair, her soft smile, her refusal to back away from the harder parts of life; a trait he coveted for himself but had never quite been able to pull off.

And he found that it made him sick.

He didn’t feel himself get up out of his chair, or run to the front door, pull it open so that he could have some fresh air. What he did feel, as he keeled over into the powder pink flowers that Belle planted, was his tea coming back up, as cold and watery as it had been when he drank it just minutes before.

He retched over the flowers, tears coming to his eyes when there was nothing left in his stomach. He saw Gideon, out of the corner of his eye, watching him from the doorway. For a moment, however brief, Rumplestiltskin expected his son to scowl, to call him a coward. But instead, Gideon reached out a hand.

“Please- don’t go. I can help.”

Rumple only shook his head, a new wave of nausea rolling through him. “I just need a minute,” he said, his voice hoarse, croaking the way a rusty hinge might protest at being moved. “Just a minute.”

“No- Papa-”

But Rumple was not listening. Instead, he had his sights set on the tree line surrounding their property, where he knew there were endless stretches of trails.

He had spent many hours on these trails already, before, when Belle would tire out and turn in to bed for what they fondly referred to as the night, though the lighting outside never changed. Not needing sleep, Rumple would take himself for a walk; which is not to say that he couldn’t sleep, if he chose to. On occasion, usually when Belle had had a nightmare the night before or was otherwise feeling lonely, Rumple would hold her in his arms and close his eyes until sleep found him (he found that he always felt more human upon waking, and realized belatedly that that may have been part of the reason he had never slept during the decades that his power consumed him).

But most often, Rumple would slip out of bed after Belle had drifted off and find something to do that would keep him busy. It had taken him about a year to find the trails- and that was only after spending exactly that long weaning himself off of the spinning.

There was a stretch of water here, deep in the woods; an inlet of some far bigger ocean, but vast still, in its own right. He and Belle often had lunch under the trees, watching the tide move in and out. Every time, as if she couldn’t help it, Belle would tell him how amazing it was for the tides to be moving at all, given the way the sun hung in the sky, unwavering for any moon. And he would listen, and spread jam on their bread, and suggest that maybe the water was simply following her movements instead.

Now, though, the ocean was perfectly still, which he thought fitting. And reflected in it, he could see a patch of dark blue sky; a hint of the first sunset.

It reminded him of another time he and Belle had spent on the water.

They had been traveling for years at that point- Gideon was already selecting a school to attend, leaving Rumple and Belle without their travel companion. That day, they had finally ended up at a lake that Rumple had had them traveling towards for some time. He thought that the water would offer the long overdue relief from his dagger, had professed as much to Belle, and dropped the thing in.

He remembered that day, feeling the dagger on his leg again, strapped in by his leather as if it had always been there. It had felt almost as if the laces were drawn tighter around the knife- a subtle but firm reminder that the thing would always be with him.

And his heart dropped.

At that moment, he had been terrified that she wouldn’t want him anymore. He had finally tried to do for her the only thing she had asked of him from the moment she loved him: to give up the power. And in the end, it turned out he couldn’t even do that. He wasn’t sure what else he had to offer her, if not this. He was sure there had to be another way to get rid of the wretched thing, but how could he ask her to give up more of her own life helping him get his back?

He hadn’t been so sure if, in the end, she would go with him.

Chapter Text

Belle hadn’t known exactly what to expect when she faced the soldiers from the front. She had spent all night spinning guesses and hopes and fears around in her head about how this would go, in fact. The soldiers described slaughter and desperation, and pleaded for some hope to guide them through the war.

She looked on silently as her father explained to them that they sent for help. Questioning faces looked back at them, until ‘the help’ had finally showed. As soon as the Dark One opened his mouth, she understood that none of her hopes had been realistic.

She realized that any notions of negotiating with this… this monster would be futile. He wasn’t reasonable- he wasn’t even human. He hadn’t come because of the allure of the various golden items they promised him, as she had thought; though they had been sure his greed- his affinity for collecting valuable items- would compel him to heed their request.

Belle thought bitterly that he had come for something valuable after all- it just hadn’t been what they were expecting.

He wanted her. He sneered as he said it, a sarcastic lilt to his voice as he took a sickening kind of pleasure in watching their faces fall. Belle found herself horrified at his proclamation; why would she ever go with him? Why would he even ask that?

Before she could even put words to the alarm bells in her head, Gaston’s arm was drawing her back behind him, as if he were going to offer her some kind of protection. She found herself attempting to catch his eye, to signal to him that now was not the time to play chivalrous, to make her look weak, but to no avail. Gaston had found his beloved audience in the terrified merchants that surrounded him, and she knew that was that.

“The young lady is engaged to me,” He professed, reaching not-so-subtly for the hilt of the sword that sat on his hip. Belle scoffed at his words- and the very obvious way he was speaking for her and about her as if she were property. She was startled that the Dark One himself seemed just as unamused with her fiancé as she was, if his pursed lips were to be any indication.

Belle felt the entire room, including herself, draw a breath while the Dark One paused in his small lecture, seeming to enjoy the attention, the urgency with which everyone was looking at him. Belle guessed that Rumplestiltskin had had more time to perfect the art of dramatics than she had even been alive for.

It seemed fitting that her only options for companionship were Gaston and he- though she had hoped she would be proven wrong someday, Belle had always suspected that fate was not that kind.

Rumplestiltskin only laughed at Gaston’s ridiculous display, dismissing him with a wave of the hand. “I wasn't asking if she was engaged,” he chided. “I’m not looking for love.”

She almost opened her mouth, to ask what exactly he was looking for, in that case- but he didn’t keep them waiting long enough for it to be necessary. “I’m looking for a caretaker, for my rather large estate.” He sounded pleased with himself as he said it, even while Belle’s stomach curdled upon hearing the words.

There was a special kind of irony in his request; Belle’s father often tried to have the hired help wait on her hand and foot, coddling her more and more since her mother had passed away. She often refused the help, finding it unnecessary and often bothersome, in fact. Belle knew this, just as surely as she knew that her father knew this- and that was why she refused to look at him as he told the sorcerer to leave their home.

It was the reaction she had been expecting, of course, as soon as she had heard the words uttered by the Dark One. But it was as Gaston wrapped his arms around her once again, herding her behind him in a way that was all too familiar that she realized she was tired of living a life so predictable, so controlled was it by these men who seemed to never consult her opinion, and never listen when she inevitably gave it anyway.

As the Dark One walked by, he made sure to catch her eye. “As you wish,” he taunted, giving a playful shrug, as if this were all a game to him- the structure of her family, the life she already had, the lives of all of the people in her village.

The lives of all the people in the village.

He was almost out of the door before she called out for him to stop. Gaston looked at her, mouth agape as if she had said something traitorous- and she supposed, to him, she had. But that no longer mattered to her- it no longer had to. She placed a hand on his arm, a gentle goodbye, and gave him a tight smile.

“I will go with him,” she said.

And the deal was struck.

---

“Belle, please think about what you’re doing,” her father implored, not for the first time since the fateful meeting, and certainly not for the last.

She wasn’t allowed much time to pack her things- almost none, in fact. She had been surprised when Rumplestiltskin had left her alone to say her goodbyes at all. He had waved his hand when she expressed surprise at the seemingly kind allowance, muttering something about how he hated to feel like he was separating a child from their family with too much haste.

Belle had balked only at being called a child first, but slowly began to realize that the entire affair was for his own benefit. She knew he didn’t care about tearing families apart- his reputation did precede him, after all. She had decided with a twist of her stomach that he was only doing his best to appear thoughtful, likely so that she would shed any reservations she had about not trusting him.

She knew better.
But regardless, she spent the little time she did have offering reassurances to Gaston and her father that she would write as often as she could, though they all knew she would never be able to keep that promise. The Dark One was known to keep people as pets, as trophies- surely the maids around his castle wouldn’t be handed ink and paper.

“I have thought about it, father, and this is the only way to make sure we don’t lose any more men in the war,” Belle sighed, repeating the words without even having to think about them- she had already spelled it out for her father over and over again. She waited for more protestations from her family, taking a breath of relief when finally, none came. And with the snap of a buckle, the rest of her belongings were secured in a chest.

All that was left was to say goodbye.

She turned to her father and her fiancé and realized with an entirely expected sadness that they too had realized what had to be done.

“Father…” She started. Her earlier frustrations with him- with his pleading and fretting- seemed petty now, and her heart twisted at the thought of leaving him. Her father was often overprotective, overbearing, and at times, completely unreasonable. But she knew he meant well, and when she looked him in the eye and saw how heartbroken he was, she found herself feeling sorry that she had agreed to go with Rumplestiltskin at all. “I don’t know what to say,” she whispered after a moment.

“That’s alright,” the old man reached out for Belle as he said it, as if to caress her face, but changed his mind and instead pulled her into a tearful hug. “I always knew you would impress me someday,” he admitted, the pride in his voice disguised by the lump in his throat. “I always knew you would do amazing things. You have too much of your mother in you to live a quiet life.” They were quiet for a moment until, with a humorless laugh, he added, “or a safe one, at that.”

Belle pulled back from her father’s embrace, wiping her own tears away as she did so. “I’m not afraid,” she said, pleased at how steady her voice came out when she said it. “And you have to trust that I can keep myself safe.”

It took him a moment, but eventually the man nodded. Belle had seen many trials in her lifetime already, and had faced most of them without his help; she knew she would be okay- she just needed her father to accept that fact as well.

A heavy hand on her shoulder pulled her away from her thoughts, and from her father. She turned to see Gaston, a morose expression on his face.

“Belle, if you think for even one second that we’re going to let this monster keep you-” he started, but Belle held up her hand to stop him, surprised that for once, he stopped talking at the gesture.

“You have no choice,” she reminded him, all too happy to interrupt his speech. And she would have been lying if she pretended it wasn’t at least slightly satisfying to look him in the eye and realize that in the end, he would have no hand in her future after all.

Gaston, however, was less pleased. “I’ll find the castle he’s taking you to. I don’t care how long it takes,” he vowed. “I will rescue you.”

Belle almost protested, but decided it wouldn’t be worth it. They had spent so many moments bickering or disagreeing- they didn’t need to spend their last ones doing the same. Instead, she only nodded. Gaston, satisfied in his display of intended heroism, reached his arms out to embrace her- and again, she thought the effort to argue would be too much.

Better to end on a positive note.

But when she leaned in to return the embrace, she felt a slight shift in the ground beneath her- a slight twinge that she thought she might have imagined- and instead of falling into Gaston’s arms, she found herself hugging… a tree?

“Sorry to interrupt the farewells, but I’m afraid that the time for that is up.”

Belle, already fed up with the games Rumplestiltskin was playing- the taunting, the magic, even the way he addressed her, as if she were a pet- spoke before she could think better of it. “You know, you could warn me before you do that.”

“But where would the fun in that be?” He asked, still smiling as if this whole thing were nothing but a source of amusement to him.

Belle turned at the offensive voice, suddenly furious. Rumplestiltskin sat atop a pile of her luggage, watching her pick tree bark off of her clothing with a taunting look on his face. Surely, an eternity could spare the minute it would have taken her to finish her goodbyes. “I was in the middle of-” she started, but Rumple only laughed.

“I know what you were doing. Relax, dearie,” he mocked. “It’s not like you loved him.”

Belle was taken aback by his brashness, his lack of tact in his accusation. She couldn’t help but notice how the words seemed to rot on their way out of his mouth, and grew angrier because of it. “How I feel for him is none of your concern,” she said, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right. But he had already moved on, uncaring that his words had offended.

“Yes, yes, that’s all well and good. But we really must be going,” he chirped, hardly looking at her. Instead, his gaze was fixed on a castle in the distance. Belle realized, belatedly, that she was looking at what must be the Dark Castle.

She was looking at the place she was to call home for, well, forever. She thought the whole place looked abandoned and gloomy, as it if were alone in this corner of the realm. She allowed herself a moment of panic looking at the towers, attempting to fathom who she would talk to, how she would pass all the time she would have to spend inside those walls. She looked at her trunks with a quiet desperation, certain that even if she had been able to fit more books in them, they still would not be enough to fill the hours.

Lost in thought, Belle barely registered a snap of Rumple’s fingers before the ground was pitching forward, much faster this time. Without Gaston or a tree to lean on, Rumplestiltskin’s transportation magic delivered Belle directly onto the floor of the palace in a heap. As she tried to pick herself up off the floor with a shred of dignity, the Dark One began to laugh, much to her chagrin.

“Don’t worry,” he said, almost in a sing-song voice. “You’ll get used to that eventually.”

While she would usually stick up for herself, Belle found that in the darkness of the castle, her words were gone. It felt easy to argue with the Dark One while she was in her own home, or in the open air of the woods, but surrounded by his collection- a staggering amount of the items being weapons, she had heard- she felt it would be wiser to let him have his fun. For now, at least.

“I think we should start with some tea,” Rumple said. He wasted no time in pulling out a chair for himself at the long table in the middle of the room. As he propped his feet up on the table- something Belle could tell he did quite often, if the dirt along the edge of the piece of furniture were any indication- she realized that getting the tea would be her job. Rumple, seeing her confused expression, pointed her to a doorway to their left, which led into the kitchen.

Belle found the teapot very easily- it was sitting on the stovetop, already boiling. As she would with many of his things in the coming years, she held the tea set gently and admired it. It was white porcelain, a delicate design hand painted in blue. Bewildered, she started to look around at the rest of his things- his copper spoons, so old and uncared for that they were turning green; his china plates, cracked and in a pile that could hardly pass for being put away.

It was only the sharp sound of his voice beckoning her back that made her leave the great room.

“You will serve me my meals. And you will clean the Dark Castle,” he started. Belle could tell from his smug expression how much he was already enjoying having her around, a toy to play with, a doll to manipulate as he pleased.
She hated him- of that she was already sure.

“I understand.” Belle clenched her jaw, remembering the rumors about the Dark One’s life- and with it, her place.

Rumple smiled wider as she played along, so unused to having company around. “You will dust my collection, and launder my clothing,” he ordered, trailing off so that she would know he was not finished talking- only waiting for a response.

Eventually, although she didn’t want to, she nodded her head. “Yes.”

“And you will fetch me fresh straw when I’m spinning at the wheel.”

By now, she had almost tuned out. She had already figured her job would be the household chores- the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry. She was more focused on pouring the tea without spilling it- a crime she was sure she’d be punished for. “Got it.”

“Oh. And you will skin the children I hunt, for their pelts.”

Belle startled at that, feeling her face go white and her hands slack. She expected that she would have to turn a blind eye to much of Rumplestiltskin’s business while she was living here, but she never expected that she would have to be involved in it- and in such a violent way! As the teacup she was holding tumbled to the floor, she felt brave enough to look the Dark One in the eye, to tell him she would do no such thing. But instead, she saw a mean humor in his eyes.

“That one was a quip,” he confirmed. Belle noted that he looked quite pleased with himself, and offered only a nod in return, realizing there was still a cup laying on the floor by her feet.

She knelt down to retrieve it, only to feel her blood run cold when she saw she had broken it. She fit the pieces back together, willing it to go back to how it was, to fuse back together before she had to explain to the Dark One that she had broken something of his not even a day into the job.

“What do you have, dearie?” He asked. She knew she had been fussing with it for too long, and decided she would have to face her fate, whatever it may be. “I’m so sorry. It’s chipped,” she confessed. And when he didn’t react, made no move to condemn her to a dungeon or cut off her hand- only a few of the great number of things she knew he had already done to others, for much less than a cup- she held up the broken teacup, timidly. “You can hardly see it.”

And while she held her breath, terrified of what he might say, he fixed his face into an expression of indifference.

“Well, it’s just a cup.”

His lack of anger surprised her- and she thought for a moment, as she poured him tea, that maybe he wasn’t as bad as everyone said.

Chapter Text

Gideon woke up already antsy the next morning, having barely slept the night before to begin with. He had been awake long after laying down, waiting for his father’s footsteps to creak back to his room, finally back home. And after he eventually dozed off, he had nightmares that somehow managed to hold him under, forcing him to watch his father throwing up into the bushes, to feel the tea turn in his own stomach, to endure screaming that was uniquely his mother’s coming from nowhere that he could save her from.

He felt he needed to busy his mind as soon as possible.

And so he had ended up in his parent’s modest sized kitchen, folding flour into pancake batter with a delicate motion that Belle had always done so effortlessly. Gideon’s pancakes never turned out as fluffy as his mother’s had, no matter how hard he tried. She used to tell him he would get the hang of it, in time, but today he found it hard to care. He would never have hers to compare his to, anyway, to see if he actually had gotten better after all. Gideon came out of his reverie only to realize, belatedly, that the batter was far past the point of being properly stirred, but poured it into the pan anyway.

He moved himself through the process of making eggs- scrambled, which was the only way his father would have them- and browning toast over the stove, distributing salt and pepper and pats of butter where they were called for. When he was finished cooking, Gideon stared for some time at the full plates and wondered who would possibly eat all this food.

He set the table anyway, absently going through the motions. After all, somebody had to- and it didn’t seem like his father could be bothered with something as benign as dinnerware at the moment.

The table, set for two, seemed to be a beacon of grief in Belle and Rumple’s home, which they tried very hard to keep tidy but cozy- but Gideon was sure that adding a third plate, even out of respect, would only make the grief that much worse. The house was well lived-in, riddled with evidence of a family of three; an extra armchair by the love seat, worn in from Gideon’s visits. A framed family photo on the mantle, enchanted to change pictures every minute or so. An extra bedroom, decorated proudly with Gideon’s trophies and sketches.

Gideon knew this house. And out of place, next to the couch, stood his father’s spinning wheel, a basket of straw sitting next to it. Gideon frowned; he was sure Rumple had put the thing away a long time ago, saying it drove him half to madness. He thought Rumple had gone straight to his room when he got home; he certainly hadn’t heard his father lug this thing back inside from the shed where it lived, much less the squeak of the wheel turning that he had fallen asleep to his whole childhood. But he supposed he could have missed it, what with the nightmares the night before.

But even more surprising than the wheel was the small, shrunken figure of his father laying on the couch, wrapped in a blanket.

“Papa?” Gideon called, softly.

“I’m awake. I’ve been awake.” Rumple made no effort to turn over as he spoke.

“When did you move out here? I must not have heard you.” Gideon supposed, as he asked, that the question really didn’t matter. But anything else they needed to talk about felt too heavy, with his father looking wilted on the couch the way he did.

In response, Rumple only shrugged. Gideon realized the bedroom had always been more his mother’s space anyway, with Rumple not needing sleep. He guessed he wouldn’t have been able to rest surrounded by her belongings either.

“Well, I made breakfast if you want to sit down with me,” Gideon tried, apprehensive.

“No, thanks.”

It was the response he had expected, but Gideon found it frustrating nonetheless. “There’s pancakes and eggs. Scrambled, how you like.” He could hear the softness of the invitation thinning, echoing in his own ears.

“I don’t want any.”

Gideon took a slow breath through his nose. “I would really like it if you came and sat with me, Papa.” He could feel his tone sharpening but could do little to keep the annoyance from creeping into his voice.

This time, Rumplestiltskin said nothing. And this time, it was too much for Gideon. Here he was, up early making breakfast so that the two of them could try to carry on. Here he was, acting like things were okay for the sake of his father, who now couldn’t even be bothered to roll over and talk to him. Since when did he have to be the adult around here? Gideon was heartbroken- and he knew Rumple was too. So why couldn't his own father see that Gideon was also hurting?

“Get up!” Gideon yelled, slamming a plate on the table. It hit louder than he had meant for it to; in fact, Gideon was surprised the plate hadn’t shattered upon impact. There was a moment of silence afterward where the air went almost stagnant before Gideon broke it with a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he exhaled. “I shouldn’t have yelled. It’s just-”

But Rumple held up a hand to quiet Gideon; he supposed he deserved a good scolding at the moment, anyway.

Sheepishly, Rumplestiltskin got out of bed- or, more rather, off of the couch, though he kept the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. It wasn’t a pretty sight; Gideon almost felt bad for witnessing it. There were bags under his eyes that seemed to suggest that this particular night of sleeplessness had taken a toll that none had before. Rumple’s hair was in various stages of disarray, his clothes hanging crooked and too loose on his body. He looked like he had receded into himself in a way that Gideon had never seen before.

In this state, he looked almost as if his every worry had been etched into his body, weighing him down and twisting him into a waning version of himself.

But, he was out of bed. And slowly, he shuffled his way over to the table and sat down with his son. His gaze fell on the blue porcelain plates- the same ones Belle had picked out on their last trip away, some time ago.

Rumple questioned why he had listened when she said they should stay here, unmoving, when he knew all she wanted was to see the world. Their quiet life together had been beautiful- it was more than Rumple had ever expected or earned, he knew. But now that she was gone, and he was left with only material evidence of her existence, he wished more than anything that he could have another chance to do right by her. Surely, dying at the edge of the universe, accompanied only by him, was not the way she deserved to go. He was afraid that everyone knew it, too.

Gideon cleared his throat. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

Rumple turned to look out the window more out of habit than anything. Every day, over supper, Belle had pointed out the good weather, and Rumple would dutifully look out and comment that yes, the view was simply breathtaking (though usually his gaze would return to her before delivering the compliment, so endlessly taken with the way her face softened as she smiled). It had become a game after a while, a kind of tradition- the weather was always the same, after all. But still, each night she would ask, and each night he would respond.

Rumple thought for a second about grabbing his fork, but decided against it. He knew Gideon meant well, but the smell of the eggs alone was enough to make his stomach roil; he wasn’t sure he could keep a bite down. “It looks the same as it always does.”

Gideon pursed his lips. He supposed, after seeing how difficult it had been to get his father off the couch in the first place, that making some kind of substantial conversation would be a fool’s errand. He glanced behind Rumple, just for a second, at his father’s spinning wheel, wondering if last night’s sorrow had led him back to the wretched thing. Belatedly, he tried to carry on the conversation. “Well, I’m grateful for it. It’s always raining in the Land Without Magic these days. A nasty season, spring. But-”

“I didn’t spin.”

“...What?” Gideon startled. Had his staring been that obvious? “I wasn’t-”

Rumple raised his eyes just enough to meet Gideon’s. Of course his staring had been that obvious.

Gideon cleared his throat and turned his eyes back to his plate, poking at his eggs. “Then why did you bring it out?” He asked- and this time, it was his turn to give his father an inquisitive look.

Rumple’s mouth twitched, uncomfortable. “There was just a minute where… I thought it might help. That’s all.”

Gideon thought that he had never seen his father so frail. Since when, he thought, has the Dark One ever hunched over a plate of cold eggs, defending his actions to anybody? Gideon remembered the days when he and his father would stroll through his mother’s rose gardens, talking for hours about all the things a man learns when he’s alive for eons, Gideon hanging on his every word. He was desperate for this awkwardness to end.

He just wanted his Papa back.

“Well, you didn’t spin. And that’s what’s important.” Gideon tried to sound reassuring, but even he wasn’t convinced by his words.

“No, I didn’t.” Rumple thinned his lips, trying desperately for a smile, but falling miles short.

Gideon only nodded his head. He could feel his stomach sour in disappointment; he could only try so hard to keep a conversation going with someone who clearly didn’t want to talk to him. He continued poking at his plate, watching the syrup mix with the butter, stirring it mindlessly with the tine of a fork.

“I miss her too, you know.” It came out as a whisper, considering he didn’t expect an answer. Gideon sniffed, letting the tears in his eyes turn his breakfast into a kaleidoscope, letting the roaring in his head drown out all of the noise in the room.

Barely, he heard his father sniff, and looked up. Rumple’s face was pinched, turned downward in shame and sorrow as tears wept from his eyes. Slowly, his hands started to shake, and then his shoulders, until his entire body was trembling from the effort of holding in his cries. But his resolve could only last for so long, and very quickly Rumplestiltskin was wiping his hands across his face, cleaning away snot and tears and the ghost of his dignity, as far as he was concerned.

“Papa?” Gideon reached out, unsure what he could do to help, but relieved that there was finally an opportunity to give it a try.

“I just don’t want to do this anymore, son.”

Gideon blinked. “...You don’t want to do… what anym-”

“None of it.” He waved one arm around at the room before him while the other cradled his head.

“What do you mean?”

Rumple took a deep, shuddering breath. It had been on his mind all night- this horrible, sickening feeling that he was not good enough, had probably never been good enough. “I just don’t know how I’m supposed to keep going like this. All my life, I’ve been one thing: a coward. But not to her- never to her. And now that she’s gone, what am I to do? I just don’t know if I’m strong enough. And I’m scared. I’m so scared to be alone here, son.”

Gideon tapped the edge of his plate with his fork. “So… what, then? You just give up?”

“I’ve never been a strong man. I’ve tried before, but I’ve always failed.” Rumple realized that it really didn’t answer his son’s question, but all he was able to say in the moment were the words that had kept him up all night. All his life, Rumplestiltskin had been one thing: a villain pretending, fruitlessly, to be allowed to claim redemption. A fool. A coward.

What reason did he have to think that this time might be different? Why shouldn’t his happiness be taken from him like this; in the midst of comfort, when he had the most to lose. Wasn’t that just what he had done countless times, even to people he claimed to care for? It made too much sense, though he loathed to give his fate any credit.

All night, he had waited for sleep. He had tossed and turned for hours, even attempting a sleeping potion in a desperate haze, which he had knocked over with his elbow at the last minute. It had felt impossible, at the time, to attempt the delicate process again, and so he had taken to the shed, looking for his wheel.

He and Gideon had put the wheel away a few summers ago, at Belle’s request. He had quit the awful, insanity-inducing habit with some kind of ease, shortly after they had moved to the Edge of Realms. And until last night, he had been perfectly content to let it sit in the shed, gathering dust.

It just seemed to him, now, that if everything in his life could only be counted on to be torn from him, he might as well give up.

“So, what? Now you just give up? Papa?” Gideon’s insistent tone brought him back to the conversation at hand.

Rumple shook his head, shame creeping up his neck and holding the words in his throat. There were no words for this. There was nothing to say that would make this acceptable.

But Gideon insisted. “What are we supposed to do now? Because I don’t know. I don’t know where you are right now.” He tried to keep his voice level, commanding. But, his breath caught in his throat, and in almost a whimper, he added, “And I don’t know what to do.”

Rumple’s voice wavered. “It just feels like, without her, I’m going to fall back into the darkness.”

For just a moment, everything went silent. Even the birds chirping outside seemed to fall quiet, as if the entire realm had heard Rumple’s profession and froze in fear of it.

With enthusiasm, Gideon broke it. “What makes you think that?” The question was calm, measured- exactly how Gideon had hoped it would sound. Of all the things he had expected to hear his father say, he was saddened to admit how terrified he had been of hearing this. But he couldn’t say he was altogether surprised, and that revelation alone hit harder than he knew what to do with.

“Because it’s the wrong choice. And if there’s one thing I’m good at- one thing I’ve practiced my whole life- it’s making the wrong choice. And I just now- son, I know- that I’m going to do it again if I’m alone here.” Gideon said nothing. He could tell by the look on Rumple’s face that his father would keep going if only he were met with silence. And, unsurprisingly, that’s exactly what he did.

“There’s this voice saying it would be easier if I got it out of the way now. It’s what everyone’s expecting anyway, right? I’ve tried to give up the darkness before, son. And when has it worked except when she’s been there to show me who I really am? I’m afraid that I can’t do it again, not anymore.”

Gideon glared. “So that’s what you want, then? To leave all the progress you’ve made behind? To turn back to your spinning and your spells and your games? Because you’ll lose everything- you know that. You’ve done it before. You-”

“-I know-”

“No. It sounds to me like you don’t know. If you knew, you wouldn't be questioning what to do. If you turn back to the darkness, you become everything you’ve fought to get rid of- everything Mom fought to get rid of. And you lose me.”

Rumple’s face paled. “No. That’s not what I want. But I don’t know if I’m strong enough. I never have been before. Not by myself.”

Gideon got up from the table, slowly, with his plate in hand. The food was barely touched, but ice cold by now, and so it went into the trash can without ceremony. He turned to the back door, intending to leave without saying anything- but Rumple stopped him.

“Where are you going?”

“On a walk. It sounds like you have a decision to make. And since you’re under the impression that you’re doing it alone, I might as well leave.” Gideon knew the words were harsh- had meant them to be, in fact- but he made no effort to soften them on their way out of his mouth.

Rumple stuttered a plea to Gideon’s back, desperate to try to mend what he had said. “Wait- son- that’s not what I meant. I-”

But it was too late. The front door clicked shut, and Gideon was on the other side of it.

Chapter Text

Belle realized not even a week later that she had been wrong- Rumplestiltskin was just as bad as everyone said he was.

Frequently, he would answer the door to some hungry, struggling person, and would not let Belle serve them food or tea. She tried to argue many times, asking what he brought her here to do if not wait on him and his guests (to which he would answer, “What I tell you to do”), but to no avail. Often she would be resigned to listening at the door frame as he lied and tricked and usually, to her disgust, benefited from their misery.

And when he wasn’t lying to some poor woman whose child was sick, or a man hurt in the war, he was somewhere far away, the exact location Belle could only guess at. She often hated him the most in the time that he was gone; she wanted nothing more than to see the world, had wanted nothing more for as long as she could remember. And yet, she had been condemned to watch as this great evil traveled instead, while she stayed behind to wait on him, never hearing stories or seeing keepsakes from his trips.

In those times, she would remind herself that her father was safe, as was her village, and that was what really mattered. Rumplestiltskin never offered a nice word to her, never joked after that first day- though that could hardly be called a joke- but still she stayed, and did what she had promised. But that didn’t mean it didn’t get lonely.

For hours, she would dust and polish his things. And when she was done with that, she knew he would inevitably find more for her to do; with the castle being so large, and his collection of items seemingly never ending, he always had more for her to do.

She watched as the days slipped by this way, until she wasn’t sure she knew exactly how long she’d been in his tower; though she guessed it hadn’t been more than a season.

She spent her time among his things telling herself stories about all the trinkets, looking to make a confidante out of a clock, or a friend out of a candlestick. Looking for something to make it all less… mundane; to temper her disappointment with her fate. Though she would not regret it, it still weighed heavily on her that she would likely not leave this castle, would not see her father or her village or any of her own things that she had had to leave behind, ever again.

When the cleaning was done, she spent her nights alone, in what might generously be called a cell. Often, she cried, thinking of all that she had lost, until Rumple eventually made the trek up the stairs with a tray of food for her. Then, she would dry her eyes and put on a brave face, though she knew it made no difference. Once he left, she would eat quietly and thumb through one of her books, which she had stashed under the mattress. And then she would try, fitfully, to get to sleep.

Which was why it was such a surprise one night when Rumple asked if she would join him for dinner. “I don’t bite, dearie,” he had said, and for once he sounded like he might be genuine; like he might just be a lonely man, asking
for someone to talk to at the end of his day.

She hadn’t trusted the invitation at first- in fact, it had taken her a week to accept, to join him at his table. Repeatedly, she told herself that she couldn't very well live in this tower forever, could she? And she couldn’t be afraid of this Rumplestiltskin forever, either. But the moment that made up her mind happened in the east wing of the palace, where all the windows were covered with drapes that were bolted down.

She had been dusting the mantles and the globes and the books when she heard voices just outside the window, muffled by the heavy curtains. She tried to ignore them at first, knowing it would be difficult to open the curtains enough to see out anyway, and went on polishing Rumpelstiltskin's brass collection, which he kept in a pile in this room (Belle would never say so to his face, but she was sure he had forgotten about a great majority of his things, and she thought less of him for it).

But eventually the voices turned from soft, muffled tones into louder, more serious shouting, and Belle couldn’t contain her curiosity any longer. She peered into the hallway, making sure that Rumple was still out on whatever business he was attending to, before lifting the drapes as far as she could. And through a small opening, she could see through the glass.

What she saw made her heart jump into her throat; the Dark One had a rose garden, tucked away behind this crumbling wing of the castle. And at the edges of the property, where the garden walls were crumbling away, there was a path into the forest, away from the castle. And in the midst of it all stood Rumplestiltskin, a twisted grin on his face, watching a couple on a horse ride away swiftly through the garden and into the woods.

And so she had told herself that dinner with the beast might not be such a terrible idea, if it meant she could learn more about the rose garden- and more specifically, about what lay beyond the garden walls.

Nevertheless, when dinner time came she watched where he sat, almost instinctively sitting herself on the opposite end of the table, as far away from him as she could get. He appeared to take note of this, but said nothing of it. Instead, he began to fill his plate with lumps of food off of various dinner plates; most of it the same gray mush that Belle was too familiar with by now. With a sigh, she began serving herself.

“Who does the cooking around here anyways?” She asked, if only to fill the silence.

Rumple stopped serving himself, briefly, to answer. “Oh, cooking spells, mostly.” He said, his face taking on a puzzled expression, as if he didn’t think much of it.

Belle bit her cheek as she raised a spoonful of the stuff to her mouth. It occurred to her, as it often did during mealtimes, that the food in this castle somehow managed to be bland despite its strong smell. It was rather unpleasant. “You would think cooking spells would be able to make food that tastes a bit better,” she mumbled. And then with a start, she looked at Rumplestiltskin, certain that he would take the comment as a slight. It had always been a bad habit of hers, to talk out loud to herself when she would be better off keeping her mouth closed.

But instead, he gave a half-hearted shrug. “I’ve never cared much what the food tastes like.”

If Belle didn’t know better, she’d think that he almost sounded wistful, as if there were a sad memory hanging somewhere in his voice. She didn’t let her mind wander for too long before she kicked herself, remembering that this was the Dark One; he was not someone to make small talk with. And so, for a brief period, they poked at their food quietly, each one looking at the other but refusing to be the one to start a conversation.

But Belle found that she couldn’t help herself. After a long while of eating in silence, she felt that she had to say something. If not for entertainment, then at least so she could try to ask about the garden.

“Why did you invite me to eat with you if you weren’t going to talk to me?” She meant it to come out sharp- a confident accusation- but instead it fell flat, fizzling out much more like a plea than she wanted.

But Rumplestiltskin only grinned. “I just thought you’d enjoy some time out of your cell. But of course, if I’m wrong, I can send you right back-” and he lifted his arms as if to magically transport her back upstairs. Of course, at her slightest protest, he relented, having only been teasing in the first place. And they began eating again, Belle longing for conversation, weighing if it was worth the risk of eating upstairs alone again if Rumplestilskin decided to follow through on his joke to send her away.

But then she remembered the rose garden, and knew she had to try.

“You know, I can cook, if you’d like,” she offered. And then, remembering to tread carefully, she added, “not that this gray stuff isn’t… delicious.”

Back at home, she would make meals for her father, and then for Gaston once they were betrothed. She had quite liked to cook, once, in what felt like another life by now. It was yet another reason she was struggling to adjust to this new life: she was given plenty of calories, but no food, no flavor.

Rumple appeared to think about her offer, something she was pleasantly surprised to see. Before he could tell her no, she started explaining, her ideas taking off with her hopes that she might actually be allowed to return to something even slightly familiar until she could find a way out of this place.

“I can write a list for the market, if you’ll let me send a cart for the things. I used to do all of the cooking at home, and-”

“Yes, yes, you know how to cook. Enough yapping,” Rumplestiltskin cut her off, flicking his wrist in a dismissive motion that left Belle frowning at him. “But I suppose something could be worked out.”

Although she was still offended, Belle sighed, relieved that she had been able to get into his good graces so easily (or at least, as close to ‘good graces’ as you can get with someone like him). If things went according to plan, she wouldn’t have to deal with his rudeness for too much longer anyway. And before the momentum of conversation could stop, she spoke again, gently leading him to what she really wanted to talk about tonight. “I was dusting some things in the East Wing today,” she said, and waited with bated breath for his reaction, but he only shrugged.

“Yes, I have a lot of things.” He didn’t take his eyes away from his plate as he said it, as if he assumed that that was the entire conversation.

Belle gathered her courage and tried again. The Dark One was feeling generous enough to let her eat with him today- but who knew about tomorrow? She may never have this chance again, and she had no intentions of missing it now. “I looked out of a window, and I saw a garden full of rose bushes,” she continued, hiding a smile when he perked up, obviously wondering where she might be going with this.

“And what might you want with the rose gardens, dearie?” He asked, making eye contact with her for the first time in their meal. Belle thought it sounded like more of a challenge than a question; but then again, she was probably overthinking it.

“Well, I was wondering if I might be allowed to walk on the paths, once I’ve finished with the day’s chores. My father, he used to give me roses each year for my birthday. It would be a nice way to remember him, now that I’m here.” It was a lie, and probably not a very good one, but she didn’t need him to believe her- she just needed to know what was in those gardens.

She wasn’t surprised when Rumplestiltskin wrinkled up his face. “Why would you ask that? Actually- it doesn’t matter. Of course you can’t go out there.”

Belle tried to calmly take the news, to tell herself that she knew that would be his answer the second she sat down at the table. But her disappointment was too strong. “But why?” she asked.

“Because there are beasts out there that might kill you, and we can’t have that, can we?”

Belle frowned at the seemingly sudden change of tone in the conversation, unsure whether or not to trust this seemingly sweet comment. “And why would that be?” She asked, deciding again to be brave.

“Because,” Rumplestiltskin giggled, “good help is hard to find.”

---

It took Belle several days to form a plan to escape the castle, and several more to get ready to execute it.

She had actually been allowed to cook, much to her surprise. She spent hours in the kitchen, stashing away a slice of bread or an apple until she could come back for it later. Or she would add extra things to the market list- things like rope and things- before she tacked it to a cart, hoping that Rumplestiltskin wasn’t reading the lists. Evidently, he hadn’t been.

She walked everyday to the East Wing, pretending to sweep or clean until Rumplestiltskin was gone, and then she would lift a corner of the curtains and try her best to commit parts of it to memory, so that when she ran she would know which turns to take.

Quickly, she realized that the roses formed a maze- and a complex one at that. She wouldn't risk keeping sketches in her pockets or her shoes or between the pages of her books- she knew how easy it would be for the Dark One to find things hidden in such obvious places. So instead she drew on napkins and scraps of paper she found, and stashed them amongst his things in the East Wing, convinced by the layers of dust coating everything that she was the only one moving anything around, anyway.

And then one day over dinner (she had cooked them roast potatoes and ham that night- a favorite of her father) Rumplestiltskin announced that he was leaving, immediately. Belle had been surprised, but tried not to show just how pleased she had also been. Rumple would say nothing more on the topic, refusing to confess where he was off to this time, nor when she could expect him back the next day. And Belle, afraid of seeming suspicious if she asked too many questions, was all too happy to forget the topic.

All that mattered was that he would be gone, and that meant she would have an opportunity to run. And so she waited patiently until he finished his dinner, and then the apparently very long process of getting his things together, before she saw him off. By the end of the whole affair, she was buzzing with nerves, certain that she would not have another chance at this.

Although she guessed that he would be gone for at least a night, she was unsure how much time she truly had. It was with a great sense of urgency that she tiptoed into the East Wing, to the brass room, where she had been stowing a few of her things in an old flour sack she had stolen from the kitchen.

And then she left.

The East Wing was not large, and Belle was delighted at how easy it was to walk her way across the floor and slip out into the garden. She was quiet, though nobody was home; she suspected that the Dark One would not be foolish enough to leave her with no surveillance. She just hoped she was better at avoiding it than he was at hiding it.

The first breath of fresh air was the sweetest; Belle had spent long enough in that castle to miss it.

Wasting no time, she crept down the wooden stairs into the garden, avoiding the center of the steps in case they creaked. When she finally found herself standing on the ground, surrounded by the roses, she found that they were much taller than they had looked from the window. The bushes seemed almost as tall as Belle was- making it impossible to see ahead. She had to force herself to take a deep breath, remembering that first night they had had dinner, when Rumple claimed there were monsters hiding in the brush. She wasn’t sure what kind of beasts he might have been talking about, but seeing the garden up close, she was sure that something could hide out here if it wanted to.

Clutching the map she had hastily drawn- and could barely read, given how dark it was outside- she started through the roses. A right turn here, a left there- but slowly, quietly. She didn’t quite understand why, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to be silent the further into the bushes she got. But her worry quickly melted away; as she went further into the maze, it was as if the night opened up, letting her in on the chorus of crickets and frogs and bunnies that usually stayed far away from the castle. She told herself that Rumple’s threats were just that: threats, which she need pay no mind to.

Come to think of it, out here it was like the air itself felt lighter. She supposed she was too used to the humid, dusty air inside.

Belle guessed that she was maybe halfway through the maze by now, if her map had been drawn well enough. She had been pleased to discover that the farther into the garden she got, the more wild growth there was. Here, daisies sprouted and foxglove bloomed and lavender offered a comforting smell, reminding her of the scented candles that Robert often burned. And if she listened closely she could hear a low humming sound, as if there might be honeybees.

Belle took a deep breath, reveling in how alive she felt- and for the first time in so long. She set down her pack, gently, and bent over to smell one of the roses; it was a beautiful, white flower that was just beginning to bloom, smelling of spring and hope and new beginnings.

And then the howling started.

Belle shot upright, grabbing at her hip for the makeshift holster she had fashioned. With a knife in hand- a small thing she had stolen from Rumplestiltskin after she had finally convinced him to let her into the armory- she scanned the bushes for whatever creature was hiding, but found nothing. Instead, the humming that Belle had earlier assumed was the sound of honeybees grew into a steady roar, and then a growl, until it felt like the beast was right behind her.

“Looking for something?” He snapped. Belle turned to face Rumplestiltskin, her heart sinking with a resigned disappointment. “You see, the thing is,” Rumple continued, a smile on his face, “you think I don’t know how to spot when someone’s about to run away.”

Of course she wasn’t surprised to hear this; she had suspected all along that something about her escape had worked out too easily, too conveniently, for it to be true. And she wasn’t surprised when Rumplestiltskin raised his arms to summon his magic to take her back to the castle. But she was, however, surprised when instead of watching the scenery turn back into the bleak walls of the castle, she watched the Dark One fall to the ground.

Chapter Text

The light filtered in slowly.

They put curtains on the windows when they built the house, but Gideon never bothered to pull them shut. He would never admit to it, but the many long, dark nights he had spent in the Land Without Magic had made him all the more fond of the golden haze that hugged the corners of his room at his parents’ house. It made him think of the honey his mother put in his tea, or the straw his father spun.

But last night the sun had slipped away beneath the trees while Gideon slept, unaware. His only clue now that it had been gone at all were the shadows on the wall, hanging lazily in shapes that could only be drawn out by a low sun, rising for the first time in eons.

Gideon looked out the window. He blinked.

He sat for just a moment on the edge of his bed, holding a breath in mourning for the extra hour of sleep that would have let him miss the sunrise- the hour that would have let him pretend everything was normal upon waking, at least for a moment.

“Papa, I’m going to make breakfast again.” He called out, if only so that someone could hear his intended errand and hold him accountable for it, so that he could not fall over into bed to sulk, like he wanted.
Gideon hung his head the entire way to the kitchen- which is how he realized that he was not wearing his slippers. It was something that Rumple had mocked them for for the longest time, calling the habit “posh” and often laughing when they offered to buy him a pair, or have one made.

Gideon decided not to go back to his room for the things.

It was Gideon’s diverted attention, though, that allowed him to discover that Rumple’s shoes had disappeared from their usual place by the door. Gideon had come back late in the afternoon, exhausted in all aspects of the word, only to recede quietly to his bedroom without dinner.

If Gideon hadn’t been awake before, he certainly was now. His father’s shoes gone meant one thing: he was out in the woods, likely not in his right mind. Gideon could only hope to catch up now, to bring Rumple back and try, once again, to get through to him. It occurred to Gideon as he pulled his shoes on how tired he was, already, of being alone in this grief.

He tore out the door in a determined huff, jacket barely on, only to stop in his tracks.

“I was wondering when you’d be up.” Rumple sat on a bench in the center of a patch of Belle’s garden, holding a white rose that he didn’t look up from, even to greet his son.

Gideon cleared his throat, suddenly feeling awkward, as if Rumple knew that he had assumed the worst and had come out here expecting to have to chase him down through the woods. He looked around, glad that his obvious attempts to look anywhere but at his father went unnoticed, for Rumple still hadn’t stopped gazing at the flower he held.

“H… How long has it been doing that?” Gideon gestured at the sky, unsure how to acknowledge this monument in the weather but desperately curious. There was something devastating about the sunrise, and Gideon found himself needing to know how long it had been happening, to know if he had missed any before now.

At this, Rumple looked up to stare at the sun, which was now in its usual place, settling into a glowing spring morning. “Setting?” He asked, though they both knew what Gideon meant. Rumple cleared his throat. “A couple days now.”

“A couple days,” Gideon repeated, his voice devoid of any emotion. Somehow, though he wasn’t aware of the command to move his feet, Gideon made it over to the bench and took a seat next to his father. The bench had been made as a love seat for his parents, a small, cozy thing, and Gideon found now that it didn’t seem big enough for the two of them, though they didn’t touch.

“I was going to make breakfast.”

Rumple nodded, his gaze focused on the flower once again.

“I was thinking of pancakes again, but I think we’re out of flour. I could run into town to get some… or we could just have eggs. I think I might have seen some bacon in the back of the fridge, too. When did you start eating bacon? I could make us omelets, if you want, or-”

Gideon felt a hand on his knee, and quickly stopped talking. In his father’s eyes, Gideon could see the urgency of words gone unspoken for far too long.

“I’m sorry.” It was a hoarse whisper.

Gideon looked at his father. “For yesterday?”

Rumple pursed his lips in an apologetic smile. “For yesterday.”

Gideon’s breath caught in his throat. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have stormed out like that. Not when I know how you’re grieving. It’s just that-“

“I know.” Rumple nodded, reassuringly tapping Gideon’s leg. “I know. I’ve been leaving you to deal with this alone. All this time, I’ve been so worried about being enough of a man to not leave this time… and come to find out, I already did.”

Gideon’s eyes filled with tears. “Papa,” he started. But Rumple shook his head, beginning to cry himself.

“No, son. It’s okay. I may not have run away, but I haven’t exactly been present either.” As Rumple spoke, a tear made its way down his face. “But I’m ready to be now. If you’ll have me, of course.”

Gideon could only nod his head. Tearfully, they embraced. They stayed that way for a while, Gideon resting his head on his father’s shoulder as if he were a child again, watching as the sun slowly rose higher, threatening to change the landscape that they had known for a lifetime.

“Did she ever tell you we had a rose garden? Back at the castle, I mean.” A small smile flitted across Rumple’s face at the memory, and Gideon smiled back.

“She mentioned it once or twice, when I was young.”

Rumple held out the rose, offered it to Gideon. “The white ones were always her favorite.”

Gideon said nothing, focused instead on the rose his father was holding out.

Rumple leaned back in his seat, daring to stare at the impending sunrise as he spoke. “Roses were Baelfire’s favorite, too. It’s the reason I had them at the castle in the first place. I thought… when I found him, it would make him feel more at home.” Rumple cleared his throat. “Of course, I couldn’t stand the sight of those things. Instead of a beacon of hope, they became a reminder that I was failing. Every day they grew a new bud, I knew I had lost another day with my son.”

Gently, Gideon handed Rumple the handkerchief from his pocket.

“Thank you,” Rumple sniffed. He tried his best to summon a smile, but found it more difficult than he had expected. After a shaky breath, he continued. “Eventually I covered all the windows in the wing overlooking the garden. And even then, I wouldn’t go near them. All my things started collecting dust, until I don’t think I could have even recalled what was in those rooms. And the roses took on a life of their own.”

“Really? I didn’t know they had been closed off. Mother only told me stories from when you went into the garden.” Gideon twisted the flower in his hands, suddenly struck by a question. “What changed?”

“Hm?”

Gideon opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Well… I just mean, with the garden. What made you want to go back into it?”

“Ah.” Rumple smiled, staring out at the horizon. “She did, of course. I didn’t let her go into them at first either, actually. She snuck out to them one night.”

Despite himself, Gideon let out a chuckle. “She did what?”

Rumple smiled wider, basking in the good memory. “Yes- she’d been living in the castle a couple months by then. She made a run for the the first chance she got. But then, we can’t be surprised. This is your mother we’re talking about.”

Gideon snorted. “Your wife!”

The joke settled over them like a welcome bed after a long day, easing the tension from their joints and the worry lines from their foreheads, even if only for a moment. The sun hung much higher now, a testament to how long they had spent sitting in the garden Belle had wished for.

As if to prove they had been out for too long, Gideon’s stomach rumbled.

“Should we go have breakfast?” Rumple stood, holding out a hand. “I suppose we have been out here a while.”

Gideon reached his own hand out to meet his father’s. “What should we have?”

———

“Ahh. That was good.” Rumple leaned back in his chair, as content as he could be, given the circumstances.

“They still aren’t as good as Mother’s,” Gideon sighed. They had found flour in the back of one of the taller cabinets, and together had tried to recreate Belle’s pancake recipe once again.

Rumple smiled. “I expect they never will be.”

“Likely not,” Gideon conceded, his tone much more serious than he had intended. There was a brief silence, a scraping of forks on plates that only held morsels.

Gideon looked out the window, sensing that his tone had been the thing to somber the conversation. “What happened after she snuck out?” He asked finally, hoping to spare them from another morning gone sour.

“To the garden?”

Gideon nodded.

Rumple sat his fork down, beginning to smile once again. “Well. I was expecting it, of course. She talked me into letting her write the shopping lists for the cart. It took less than a week for her to start writing for food she never served to me. And things like rope, even!”

“She thought you wouldn’t read the lists?” Gideon raised his eyebrows, amused.

“It did appear that way. She caught on fast enough when I found her running through the gardens, though.”

Gideon laughed. “She was always the smart one.”

“Indeed,” Rumple smiled back.

“How did you get her to come back?” Gideon asked. “I can’t imagine she was happy to be caught.” The imagery brought a smile to his face- his mother, as kind and well-mannered as she was, was not one to be bossed around.

“No, she was not,” Rumple laughed. “She ran- and she got away, if you can believe it. Almost made it the rest of the way to the gate. I had to cast a cloaking spell on the bushes so that she couldn’t find her way out, or else who knows what would have happened.”

“Surely something was slowing you down,” Gideon guessed. He knew many things about his father’s time as the villain the Dark One- and one thing he knew for sure was that he would not have been outrun by anyone, including Belle.

“Ah, smart boy.” Rumple tipped his cup toward his son, a salute. “As you can imagine, I had to have something protecting that garden. I couldn’t have just anybody walking up to my castle. So I had… wolves.”

“Wolves?” Gideon repeated, though he supposed he shouldn’t have been so surprised. Though he had grown up in the Land Without Magic, his parents had not; such a conventional guard dog was a surprise. “I guess I’d have expected dragons, or witches.”

Rumple got up from his seat, reaching for Gideon’s empty plate to stack on his own. “Well, in a word they were wolves. They certainly looked like wolves, at least.”

“What do you mean?” Gideon joined Rumple on his walk to the kitchen, beginning to fill the sink with hot water to soak the plates in. “Here, I can take those,” he offered, holding his arms out.

“Thank you,” Rumple smiled, handing the dishes to his son before continuing his story. “Anyway, never mind what they actually were- some magical being traded to me in some deal or another. They were magically bound to the castle, and that was all I needed from them. They knew to find a target, and attack. Nothing more. And that’s what they did that night- except they got me. I had a nasty gash on my arm for weeks afterward.”

“Couldn’t you heal it with your magic?” Gideon mused. “I can’t recall if I’ve ever seen you wounded for more than a moment.”

“Well- in a way. I enchanted their claws so that any mark left by them would heal much slower than a regular wound. I couldn’t have thieves running away with no mark to look for, could I?”

“Ah,” Gideon nodded. “So even your magic wouldn’t have worked on the wounds?”

“Of course it would have- they were enchanted by my magic. I could have undone it, if I had wanted to. That had been the plan, in fact.”

“…But you didn’t, I gather? What changed your mind?”

Rumple paused, seeming to consider his answer for some time. Finally, he gazed at a picture of him and his wife. “She took care of me. Even after I had shown her no kindness, she took care of me. For the first time in so long, somebody treated me like I was human again.” Rumple paused, his eyes clouding over with the memory. “There must have just been something about her.”

Gideon’s own eyes filled with tears as he, too, looked at the smiling picture of his parents. “Yes, I agree. There was something about her.”

Chapter Text

In the end, the confusion had only lasted a moment.

Upon realizing that she was not about to be magically thrown into her cell, Belle grabbed for the flour sack containing the few items she had been able to bring with her, and then took off running. Map forgotten, Belle sprinted through the maze of roses, taking sharp turns only to have to double back when they led her in a loop or to a dead end. She was certain that the brambles were rearranging themselves so that she could not find the way out no matter how hard she might try.

By the time Rumplestiltskin caught up to her- which didn’t take long- Belle was exhausted. One of her shoes had fallen off a couple of turns back, and she hadn’t retrieved it for fear of taking too much time to put it back on. And she supposed one of the thorns from the rose bushes had snagged on her flour sack, ripping a hole that was leaking a steady stream of her things onto the dirt around her, something she hadn’t noticed until she had been stopped, scared, in the gaze of the Dark One once again.

“You can’t make me go back.” It was a final show of what she hoped was bravery, but knew that Rumpelstiltskin would take as defiance- but she didn’t care. There was a life for her beyond the walls of this castle, and she would be damned if she didn’t go back without putting up a fight first.

Rumple only grinned in amusement. “Oh, but we both know I can make you go back, dearie,” he chuckled. “Let me show you.”

Hoping to get away again before Rumple could get his wits about him, Belle glanced over her shoulder at the open path behind her, desperately searching for some sign of which way to go. But she was exhausted, and lost- and she knew she couldn’t run forever.

Belle cowered, waiting for the flip in her stomach that meant she was being transported- but it never came. “Why are you letting me-” she raised her head to ask, but stopped short when, for the second time that night, the Dark One appeared debilitated. Rumplestiltskin stood, clutching his arm, muttering curses under his breath. She couldn’t quite tell, but it looked like there was something dark running down his arm. In the dim light, it took Belle a moment to understand what she was looking at: the Dark One, bleeding.

Belle blinked in horror as much as awe. “What happened?” She asked, curiosity winning out over common sense.

“Nothing,” he snarled. But his grip on his arm didn’t loosen, and Belle knew enough to recognize when someone was in pain.

“I don’t believe you. What happened?” Why do I care what happened?

Rumplestiltskin glared at her, furious. Belle barely had time to register the snap of his fingers before she was standing on cobblestone again, locked away in her tower. Denial forced her to the window, to see for herself if she really was back in this horrible place- but of course, she knew the answer before she even got a glimpse of the castle grounds, so many stories beneath her. And as she laid her head on the bars that now decorated her window, she swore she heard the walls whisper. I said it was nothing.

---

She stayed in her cell the next day and watched the daylight pass, wallowing mostly, ignoring the laundry that needed washing and the endless trinkets that needed dusting. Normally, she would move with haste to get things done- but now she figured it was useless. She was smart enough to know, when the Dark One hadn’t come to see what was keeping her from her chores, that he had likely decided that her usefulness had ended.

Despite how sure she was that her fate was sealed- what other end was there for someone who dared to defy the Dark One?- her blood still ran cold at the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. Her eyes darted about the room in a panic, and belatedly, she kicked herself for not hiding a weapon in her cell when she had had the chance; there were lots of times that her blind optimism had gotten her into trouble before, but none like now.

Gaston would just think this is hysterical, she thought sarcastically, and then cringed, intent that her last thoughts would certainly not be spent on the likes of Gaston. Instead, she thought of Robert, and her horse, and all the romantic novels she would never get to read. She thought of her father back home with their people, safe.

And then, in horror, she wondered if Rumplestiltskin would go back on his promise to her village after he killed her. She supposed she wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.

He appeared in the doorway with none of the pomp and circumstance she was used to seeing from him, flicking his wrist to open the cell door with a yawn. For a long time, neither Belle nor Rumple said anything. Belle was sure it was some kind of horrible mind game- to open her cell and then stand there, not even looking in her direction.

Eventually, she was certain that if she wanted this to end, she would have to be the one to end it. She took a deep breath, reminding herself to drop her shoulders and loosen her jaw.

“What are you going to do with me?” She asked, jutting her chin out.

Rumple wrinkled his eyebrows. “Do with you? Why do you have to say it like that?” He wrinkled his lip into what Belle guessed he thought was a smile. “I might force you out of here if you don’t start walking soon, if that’s what you mean.”

“If I don’t… start walking? To where?”

“Well, the kitchen of course.”

In her confusion, Belle dropped the bravado. “What do you need me in the kitchen for?”

He sighed and wrinkled his nose, as if he were dealing with a particularly stupid child. “Well, you can’t cook from right there, can you?”

Belle was stunned. “...Cook? You mean you want me to-”

“Yes, dearie. I mean cooking. We have to eat sometime, and while you’ve been moping in your room all day, I’ve been going hungry.”

Belle sucked in a breath, suddenly angry. There was a voice in the back of her head telling her it likely wasn’t wise to insult him, but she ignored it. If he hadn’t tried to kill her already, she wasn’t sure he would decide to now. “I would hardly call it moping- and I would hardly call it a room, either!”

In response, Rumple glared. “Cell, then. You know, you’re so hard to please. I thought you would be happy to learn that you had been forgiven for yesterday, but if you prefer that I just kill you now…” Rumple held up a hand, as if to cast a spell, and Belle flinched. With a smile, Rumple turned around again and started to walk down the stairs. When Belle hesitated to follow, he called out over his shoulder. “That door will close in about ten seconds, and once it does, it will not reopen. You can follow me to the kitchen, or you can starve in here by yourself.”

Belle followed.

—

Without ceremony, Belle took her place in the kitchen. She waited until Rumplestiltskin was safely on the other side of the doorway before she fell to her knees, so full of relief that the feeling almost made her sick. If she had been confident that she was not being watched, she would have kissed the floor beneath her, so happy was she to have her life handed back to her- even if that life would only exist within these walls.

Cooking dinner was a happy affair, though she had to rush through it at Rumple’s insistence. Determined not to let him see her upset, she hummed while she stirred and chopped and simmered everything that was in the cabinets. Rumple had called for a feast, and she was in no position to disagree. She had thought his comment about going hungry all day had been an exaggeration, but based on his urging, she guessed now that he truly hadn’t eaten yet. The growls in her own stomach did not allow for much empathy, however.

Almost as if Rumple could tell when the food was done, Belle brought out the first dish to an already set table, and then watched in amazement as the rest of the dishes magically appeared in an array on the cloth Rumple had laid out.

“This looks… very nice,” Belle murmured the comment to herself, sure that Rumple was not in the mood to entertain comments from the help. As expected, Rumple gave no answer, and so Belle took her seat at the end of the table without comment and folded her hands into her lap.

“Are you waiting for an invitation, dearie?” Several moments had passed in this kind of uncomfortable silence, in which neither of them moved for a plate.

Belle blushed. “I- no, not really.” She reached for the dish in front of her and started eyeing the food, unsure what to start with now that she had all of it in front of her. She had boiled potatoes and roasted steaks, simmered vegetables and baked rolls with a spread of gravy. Tentatively, she glanced at her dinner partner, wondering what he was thinking- and why he hadn’t grabbed for a plate yet, still.

Belle wrinkled her eyebrows. From across the table, it appeared that Rumplestiltskin was engaged in some desperate attempt at first aid, his arm clearly still hurt from the night before. There were cloth bandages and gauze laid out on his dinner plate, creating a more and more complex knot as Rumple tried to fashion a kind of wound dressing out of it. She watched for a moment, until she was convinced that he must have never done this before.

“You know, the band aid goes on last.” Belle smirked.

Rumple fixed his gaze on her. “If you’re so concerned, why don’t you come do it yourself?” He asked, waving his unoccupied arm around as if to illustrate how foolish he thought this whole thing was.

He only struggled a moment more before Belle got up from her chair, motivated by the knowledge that until his injury was properly cared for, the food would grow cold.

“You know,” she muttered, reaching for the ointment in the mess of bandages that Rumple had tried, and failed, to apply to his arm. “You might not be in such a sour mood if you would just ask for help.”

But Rumple said nothing, only staring at her while she tied off the bandage. She met his eyes for a moment, and in them she swore she saw a new kind of gentleness- gratitude, perhaps.

“So what happened, anyway?”

“You mean, the part where you stole things from me and stashed them in my weapons wing? Or when you tried to sneak out through my gardens? Hmm?”

Belle froze, gauze in hand. “You knew about it the whole time.”

Rumple only laughed.

Belle shook her head to clear her thoughts. After all, was she really surprised? “I meant,” she said, clearing her throat. “What happened to your arm? It was dark, so I couldn’t really see, but it was almost like you just collapsed… or something.”

“Trying to change the subject?” He sang. “I don’t think you should concern yourself with such things.”

Belle paused, considering. And then she realized something. “Well, I don’t think you mean that.” There was a long silence before Belle continued, where she expected Rumple to interject. But instead he sat tight-lipped, inviting her to continue. She thought that even for just a minute, there might have been genuine interest in his expression. “I think if you didn’t want me to care, you wouldn’t have let me see it. And if you didn’t like having me around at least a little, you wouldn’t have let me live. But here I am. So, no. I don’t think you mean that.” Belle turned Rumple’s arm over, gently tying off the bandage. She met his eyes in the mirror opposite the dining table. “I think you want a friend. Or else I wouldn’t be eating with you now.”

Her point made- and made well, if her smug smile told Rumple anything- Belle took her seat across from him and, unceremoniously, began eating.

It wasn’t long before he talked.

“I have wolves out there.” He turned his injured arm over slowly, inspecting the bandage. Apparently deciding it was passable, Rumple began serving himself and then, rather abruptly, shoveling the food to his mouth.

Belle sat back, abandoning her own plate. Something in her stomach fluttered at the success, pleased with herself. “Wolves?”

“To protect the castle. Can’t have anybody getting to close. Can we?”

Slowly, she nodded. “So then… what did they do? I mean, they must be under some sort of spell to be staying so close by. And something must have gone wrong for them to attack you.”

“Well… not wrong, exactly.”

Belle waited, but Rumple didn’t continue. “What, then? Go on.” With the demand, she felt her stomach drop, unsure how he would react. She had weighed her odds, though, and decided that if he trusted her so far, she had no reason not to try now.

Rumple adjusted his collar. His first plate of food was gone, and he seemed to be considering what to try next. Belle’s plate, however, sat untouched. “They’re… specially trained, say. They aren’t picky about who you are, or why you’re in the gardens. Just that you’re somebody, out there at all.”

“So they’ll attack anybody, including you? That doesn’t like a good system- look what happened because of it.”

Rumple scowled. “It works very well. They do the hunting so I don’t have to. It frees up time for me to do… other things, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

Belle narrowed her eyes. “Then why did you?”

“Why did I what?” He snapped, still bitter.

“Why did you come out to get me? If the wolves do your hunting for you, why not let them deal with me?”

Rumple said nothing. Belle tried to catch his eye, but he seemed to be entranced by the paintings on the wall across from her. For once, she had asked him something he was unwilling- or unable- to come up with a quip for.

Belle cleared her throat, finally returning to her plate. “Well… okay then. You won’t tell me now, but you will someday. Right now, I want to know why you can’t heal the wound yourself. You have the most powerful magic in all the realms- but you don’t have something to cure a scratch?”

Rumple poked at his food. He weighed whether or not to keep talking, thinking to himself that it would be much easier- much more familiar- if he went back to simply having a maid, and not a dinner partner.

“I enchanted their claws so that magic doesn’t work on the wounds. It makes it much easier to find the person trying to sneak through my gardens. Usually works like a charm.” He raised his eyes slowly, trying to anticipate her reaction before continuing.

She wouldn’t have it. “What do you mean?” She demanded, though her tone had lost its sting.

“Well, a gaping hole in someone’s arm is pretty hard to miss, no? Makes it easier to track them down later if they manage to get away.”

“I suppose.” For some reason, the admission left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Rumple seemed to sense this. “Don’t start being afraid of me now, Dearie. I’m only the Dark One, after all. Hasn’t fazed you so far, obviously.”

“You’re right,” she smiled, wondering how often his sarcasm was lighthearted rather than leering.

“Well of course I’m right.” When he looked at Belle, she would have sworn he was holing back a smile.

The sheer absurdness of it hit her suddenly. Here she was, daughter of a merchant in a village nobody had heard of, exchanging jokes with the Dark One over dinner. Something about it felt so ridiculous; the kind of thing that’s so wrong, so unlikely that, once it happens, you know your life is never going back to normal. She wasn't sure her new normal was all that bad, though.

“So,” he cleared his throat. “What kinds of things do you read?”

She stared at him for a moment, sure he meant to laugh at her if she answered. But he only leaned back in his chair, meeting her gaze with a quiet inquisitiveness. “You want to know what I’m reading?” She asked, finally.

Rumple shrugged.

“Well, as long as you don’t expect me to believe you haven’t already gone through my cell and found what I’m reading, I’ll tell you."

The meal lasted much longer than their previous dinners ever had, the conversation lulling and picking back up in an at times awkward stumble. She told him about her father, back in her village, and of Gaston, who she wasn't sure she missed all that much. And he told her of nights he had spent here alone, shooting arrows at a crack in the wall just because he could, or staying up all night mixing a potion who's only spell was to undo itself so that he could brew it again. Belle thought, as she climbed up the stairs to her cell, that there seemed to be some type of change in their relationship- and she found that she certainly didn't mind it.

As she fell asleep that night, for the first time, her cell door wasn't locked behind her.