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The first time Belle felt those eyes on her, the hair on the back of her neck standing up, was when she was out back of the bakery putting out another bag of garbage.
She looked up sharply and was met with slightly nervous wide brown eyes looking back at her.
The man standing there gave her a sheepish smile, excusing himself for the blunder. Her demeanor immediately softened - there was a slight anxiousness in his voice, a slight shyness to his smile that endeared her in a moment. He apologized while his fingers clenched around an unwieldy walking stick.
She knew he was lying, when she saw the bit of paper that had stuck to his clothes; the type that they used in the bakery to wrap goods in. He had been in their trash. She smiled wider and gestured for him to come in, making a remark on a guest's entrance. He gave her the shyest smile, a sort of slight surprise and almost wonder in his eyes, and something inside her clicked curiously.
Belle shook it off – she headed to the back and drew out a couple of malformed loaves and one broken cake, wrapping them up and handing them off. He was gearing up to refuse, so she pressed it into his hands and insisted - she had no use for them, he would be doing her a favor.
He looked so bashful, something protective in her sung.
The next time Belle saw him, he was in line at her bakery. It's spring then, and he eyed the confection she handed off to another customer, the little animal-shaped cookies meant for children. There's such a depth in that simple glance that she didn’t expect - a bit of fondness, and a bit of sorrow.
"Did you get those when you were a child?" She asked, already trying to size him up.
The spinner gave a rueful smile, leaning against his walking stick. "No... no, but my son adores them."
It hit her with the force of a cart. Because oh, dear gods, the way his face changed. He looked away and there was this awe and love in his eyes. His lips curl up and his expression softened with this utter paternal affection. It's like any shyness of him was cast off in the moment, any hesitation left him.
The spinner cared deeply about his son, as true as the sun set in the west.
When he asked after one of the cookies, she quoted him a lower price. If her hand slipped and another one, or two, ended up in the bag she handed him - it's no one's damn business but her own.
If the next time he returned, and her hand slipped again... well, she was distracted, by this sweet man, looking at her with such gentle eyes and who turned so absolutely gorgeous in light of the eager discussion of his son.
Belle knew he was holding things back, when she asked after his life - she didn’t push. Sometimes she wrapped his rough hands around a cup of something sweet and fresh and gave him a smile. The look in return is enough, for now.
She had never endured the awful heat of her ovens and summer mixed together so cheerfully.
She hadn't seen her spinner in a while, and she was starting to get worried. Winter was wrapped around them now.
The first time she had Mr. Gold's eyes on her, the shop had been quiet. She was turned away from the door, and a low hum filled the room, the sound of the next record being played. Nothing unusual… but she had turned the player off.
Belle turned as sharply as she had the first time, her senses on alert with a flare of alarm and hope.
Before her stood a man with a shark's smile. His eyes and hair were brassy, almost shiny in the light. In his hand was a sleek and strong cane, made from bone or metal, a finely crafted thing. He should've felt like danger. As the hope and alarm both eased, instead she saw something... familiar.
Her mind felt blurred, like trying to find the right figure in the fog, despite standing so plainly in her shop. So she put on her smile and said her opening line, shoving back the odd sensation. The interaction went like clockwork, other than her distraction and her eyes raking over him, trying to understand the familiarity...
"What's this?" He gestured at her arm, at the red mark protruding from under her bandage. His voice was as refined as his suit and cane.
"Occupational hazard. Just a little burn.” Belle brushed him off cheerfully.
"Hm." His eyes regarded the bandage impassively.
As she passed him his purchase, his hand brushed against her arm.
The early hours of the preparation the next morning, she almost dropped another tray. Her arm was completely healed. She had been doing this far too long to not know how long it should take to recover, even from more minor burns.
Eyeing the unmarked skin, she stayed still as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up in some sort of anticipation.
Like what? Some sort of guardian would appear from the dawn?
She felt ridiculous, and threw off the idea, starting to mix new batter. It was a fluke, probably.
Mr. Gold returned, time and again. It seemed like he had appeared almost overnight. When he drew to her counter, everyone else seemed to skirt around him, as if seeing something she didn’t.
Belle saw the looks the others gave him, and she ignored them as pointedly. Over again, he asked in a steady, confident voice about her. He gave little in return, his own answers short.
The only time she stepped in was when someone was eyeing his tidy cane, as if they were thinking of what it would take to topple the shark-smiling man. She walked around to his side, between him and the disdainful gaze, as she directly pushed the bag of pastry into his hands.
His eyes flickered to the side – he was not naive, or unobservant, clearly. He understood her movement, her protection of him. He looked at her with this spark of something, this... confusion, not wary but searching.
Something in her chest clicked curiously.
Belle’s head ached, desperately, trying to see through the fog and understand who she's seeing in front of her.
Spring comes again.
It’s not something he says, it’s the damn cookies. She’s in the rhythm of cutting the next tray into shapes when her heart suddenly races, realization slicing through the haze in the back of her mind.
He comes, at the same time he does every week. The same smooth, unruffled manner, so unlike the man she knows he is.
Belle makes herself look truly into his brassy eyes, for the first time.
She’s right. Under she sees the soft, warm, wide chocolate eyes that had crinkled with shy smiles. A smile spread across her face, and he pauses in his words, at the way her face lit up.
"How's your son?" She asks, finally, her voice eager and triumphant. That curious little feeling that she knows well by now whirls back to life in her chest, settling between her ribs, the returning music of that vinyl that had spun and spun until it had spluttered into scratchy silence in her long talks with him; back before he appeared in his gilded gold.
His eyes flicker with something like surprise, like that first day. A beat before the sharp teeth were softened with the fond smile, the same she had begun to adore so much.
"He's well." He says, finally soft again.
There’s her spinner.
She leans up, and kisses his cheek.
His eyes widen in an almost flustered manner. He’s still, staring at her for a moment as if waiting for something. Like she was going to take something from him at the admission.
However, she looks at him as she had when they first knew each other. A look he had missed.
"...Rumpelstiltskin." He tells her, and she knew what he was giving her.
"Rumpelstiltskin.” She beams, her eyes glowing up at him. "Rumple. The bakery closes at six. How about dinner at eight?"
He hesitates again, a beat.
"You can bring your son, if you don't have anyone to watch him. I don’t mind."
He looks at her like she was something from a fairytale, bewildered awe. She had yearned for that dear face for too long.
He takes her hand in his. By morning, not only would all small scratches and singes on her hand be healed; she would find the scar from a childhood accident, a forever resident on the back of her arm, a bit faded. The culprit? The sheer force of warmth that flushed through her when her spinner clasped her hand.
Belle knows the answer to her proposal before he says it.