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“Rumple, are you awake?”
“No.”
“Rumple!” Belle shook him harder, causing his eyes to open.
“What’s wrong?” he groaned, half asleep.
“I hear something downstairs.”
He stared at his lovely wife in her blue nightgown, her hair in disarray. Her worried look helped calm his irritation.
“You probably just dreamt it.”
“No, I heard it when I was coming back from the bathroom. Rumple, someone’s in the house.”
He sighed, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Sweetheart, the house is protected by three layers of wards. No one could get in here.”
She bit her lip. “What if they flew in?”
“I reshaped the wards into a dome after the Moleman got in last month. No one can get in from the sky or from underground. Belle, it was probably just—”
A crash came from downstairs, and his eyes widened.
“See, I told you.” Belle would have sounded smug if she weren’t so worried.
“Stay here.”
Rumplestiltskin teleported downstairs and crept along the wall toward the kitchen, where he could hear noises.
The sound of running feet made him stop and close his eyes.
“Was there any point in asking you to stay in our room?”
“Nope,” Belle replied from behind him.
“At least stay behind me.” He concided as he made his way to the kitchen, with Belle following.
He could hear tapping on the floor, but he couldn’t see anyone standing in the kitchen when he peeked around the corner. He turned on the lights.
The trash can was knocked over, and trash was scattered across the floor. Shattered cups—not their chipped cup, which is locked away safely—littered the ground.
Peeking out of the trash can with a squeak was a raccoon.
“Aw, little guy was hungry.”
“Looks like I need to change the wards again to account for animals. How did it even get in?”
“She, Rumple, male raccoons are much larger.”
He watched as Belle crouched down and tried to coax the animal to her.
“Belle.”
“Hmm?”
“We are not keeping a raccoon as a pet.”
For a moment, it looked like she wanted to protest, but then her shoulders dropped. “No, I suppose we can’t. She needs to be in the wild.”
The Dark One looked at the disappointment on his wife’s face and sighed, resigned to his fate. He’d go to the animal shelter in the morning.