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The bright white “0” of her inbox made Belle sigh, snapping her phone shut as her husband pulled his Cadillac into a parking spot. They were lucky to have found such companions in Princess Abigail and Sir Frederick, and they were even more blessed that the couple would so willingly agree to watch young Baelfire and little Amelia for them to have an evening away from the circular headache called Storybrooke, Maine. But all that withstanding, Belle’s inclination to check her phone persisted until her husband sighed noisily as he hung up his handicap parking permit on his rearview mirror, and she blushed to the roots of her auburn hair.
“It’s just uncomfortable to not know how they are,” Belle explained by way of apology, unbuckling her seatbelt. She slipped her phone in her purse, shaking her head as she retrieved it from the floorboard. “It doesn’t feel right, not having Bae chattering behind my shoulder.”
Mr. Gold smiled gently, the lines around his mouth finding it a more natural habit since his marriage, and he reached across to take his wife’s hand. “Belle,” he waited until she looked up at him, and he leaned closer. “If anyone can understand that, it would be me.”
It was one evening to themselves, of course. Not three hundred years, and Belle felt chastened in the face of the truth, nodding. “Of course, you’re right, I’m being silly.”
“N-No,” Mr. Gold frowned at himself, his dark eyes dropping down to his dark suit. She could feel his fingers twitch over her own, and even then, she knew he would rather retreat into himself. Instead, he held her hand tighter. “I didn’t mean that, but that it’s natural to feel. You spend so much time caring for others, it doesn’t feel right to care for yourself,” his frown lightened, and he met her eyes again, a soft gleam of amusement warming his face. “But I think I have just the distraction.”
Raising her eyebrows and feeling a familiar thrill of excitement, Belle gathered herself and climbed out of the car after her husband. The air was cold and damp, mist falling between snow and rain, enough to put crystals in their hair and turn their breath to smoke, but in the pearly grey of that late afternoon, their destination seemed even more mythical and grand. It was larger than a manor, and could even pass for a palace in their world, with large white stone columns, hundreds of windows, and a sprawling acreage that made Belle feel absolutely miniscule.
Mr. Gold locked the car before joining his wife, taking her hand and walking slowly with her as she gazed up at the large building, and the few people that trickled up and down the steps in raincoats and umbrellas.
“Storybrooke’s not exactly a center of culture and intellect. I thought a fresh perspective was in order,” Rumpelstiltskin said with good cheer, relaxing as his wife began to smile in her delight. He waved his hand with a flourish, an echo of the old showman in him as if he were presenting her the world. “The Boston Museum of Fine Arts.”
Belle grinned in happiness, her cheeks hurting from how big her smile had grown. She tightened her arm in her husband’s, quickening her pace. “Oh, a museum,” she bit her lip on a wistful, dreamy sigh. “Have you been here before?”
He drew to a stop just at the base of the stone steps, blinking at her in surprise. “No. I’ve never been to Boston.”
Belle frowned, glancing between her husband and the building behind him. “But then... why here?”
Heat lit up her husband’s cheeks, turning his skin a ruddy, warm color. He hesitated, glancing between her and the door, clearing his throat, “I just... thought you would like it. Do you want to go somewhere else?”
“No!” Belle threw her arms around the one of his that didn’t hold his cane, her heart flitting like a hummingbird with excitement. Her smile was breathless, and she couldn’t contain her simple happiness that her husband still did these things, these wonderful, incomprehensible things for her. “No, I don’t- I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
Rumpelstiltskin’s shoulders fell about two inches, and he smiled as he relaxed and nodded. Together, they took the stairs, using each other for balance and support, and once through the large glass doors. Inside, they had to pass through metal detectors, and Belle’s heart thumped when she stepped through, relaxing when the alarms didn’t go off for her or her husband. Immediately in front of them was a desk that said “Visitor’s Center”, and Mr. Gold ushered Belle over to where a large, very pretty woman sat behind a monitor. While he spoke with her, Belle was drawn to the different brochures that lined the desk, advertisements for tours and something called an IMAX.
Plucking up a few that were near the front, and one that was a general breakdown of the museum, she let her husband prod her to move away from the desk, dutifully reading the history of the building and absorbing the details before she realized they were following a group of people.
“Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea after all,” Mr. Gold heaved a sigh. “‘Tis a shame.”
Belle looked up from the brightly colored pamphlet, quirking her eyebrows up at her husband as they strolled leisurely through the foyer. With her arm cozily tucked in the crook of his elbow, Rumpelstiltskin smirked down at the front of one of the brochure, raising an eyebrow as he asked, “Really, Belle, an entire production of ‘cobalt pigment applied to white clay and porcelain’? You’re practically a tottering lawsuit waiting to happen in here.”
Belle’s mouth fell open in indignation, looking at one of the exhibit pamphlets, though a smile fought its way onto her face as Rumpelstiltskin gave her a boastful grin. “Oh-!” She scoffed, attempting to keep her voice quiet around a growing smile and her own thick accent in the echoing foyer, “You are so-!”
Rumpelstiltskin raised his eyebrows challengingly at her, slipping his arm from hers with a daring smile and a flourishing twirl when no one was looking, and, taking two dramatically wobbling steps, imitated her clumsy footing with begrudging grace for a man with a limp and a cane. Belle smothered her laughter, snorting into her hand and slapping his arm with her brochure, hissing, “Stop-stop, you’re going to get us in trouble!”
“I’m not the liability putting their entire exhibit in danger,” Rumpelstiltskin snickered impishly, letting her grab his hand and march him like a child past the stairs and into the first show room.
Belle came to an abrupt halt once she and her husband found themselves in the darkened hall, hooking her tongue on the corner of her mouth as she unfolded the brochure to look at the museum map. It took her twice turning the map upside down before she could find the room where they stood, and so focused was she that she missed the soft look her husband wore as he watched her, doe-eyed and content to seemingly wait on her for the entire day.
An onlooker could wonder why such a person went to a museum if they weren’t intent to stare at the treasures of the display cases, but the allure was broken when, slapping the thin museum map against his tie, Belle’s periwinkle eyes caught sight of something behind him, lighting up. “Oh, look how beautiful,” she cooed, bustling right past him to hover in front a glowing display case filled with brilliant white stones, speckled in blue. Belle leaned as far as she could without putting her nose to the glass, blinking down as Rumpelstiltskin meandered up behind her, reading the information about the exhibit. “I wonder what they are.”
Glancing up for just a moment, Rumpelstiltskin supplied, “Clay.”
“How do you know?”
He rolled his eyes. “Half the homes I grew up in were made with clay. I know it when I see it.”
Snatching the brochure from his spindly fingers, Belle raised her chin with a high and mighty smirk. “Fine then, if you know so much-what are those things made of clay?”
Rumpelstiltskin narrowed his eyes at his too clever wife, a smile tickling at the corner of his mouth before he scoffed a laugh, turning to lean both hands on his cane and peer into the display. “Different sizes, but similar and mirroring shapes,” he murmured, tilting his head to the side in thought as he observed the small circular and cubed clay pieces.
Belle leaned down at his shoulder, looking from piece to piece at the blue lacquer paint. Each design was uniquely different, at least to her eyes, but Rumpelstiltskin seemed to be able to make some sort of message from them. “They’ve got to be some kind of set,” he muttered, straightening with a frown. Glancing over their shoulders, Rumpelstiltskin leaned down, muttering quietly to Belle, who raised up on her tiptoes to hear. “In our world, they can be used for magic, sometimes ceremonial or healing, sometimes warding off supernatural or magical enemies.”
He gestured with his hand lazily, “The markings can vary, depending upon the intended purpose of the ritual.”
Belle hummed, “Fair enough. But what are these?”
Hesitating, Rumpelstiltskin winced. “I... can’t say.”
“The great and powerful Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t know?” Belle admonished with no little amount of cheek, earning a sour look from her husband. Giggling, she unfolded the brochure once more, flipping until she found the correct page and read aloud, “‘Pouran Jinchi’s prayer stones.”
“Oh no, that’s what I said!” Rumpelstiltskin laughed, pointing a leather gloved finger at his wife who stuck her tongue out in triumph. “I’m repossessing the right to the pamphlet.”
“No, you lost, fair and square,” Belle proclaimed, taking a step back and tucking the brochure inside her deep red jacket beneath her coat. If her husband would want it bad enough, he’d have to be very sleuthy in retrieving it.
“Oh, Belle, honestly,” Rumpelstiltskin rolled his eyes, taking a step past her. “That’s utterly childish.”
Just as Belle opened her mouth to rebuke such a statement, Rumpelstiltskin’s hand shot out of thin air, and she was sure he used magic because his clever fingers found the delicate spot of her ribs with too much familiarity, producing a near shriek of laughter from her that echoed in the show hall, turning several disapproving looks from other museum visitors.
Belle gasped, her hand flying to her mouth to smother her giggles when Rumpelstiltskin instantly straightened, clearing his throat.
Smacking him in the arm with the back of her hand, Belle hissed, “They really will throw us out!”
“If you keep being such a bother, I think you’re right,” her husband replied tartly, earning himself another smack. It took the roughest of coughs to mask his laughter that time.
The exhibit itself was quite extensive and beautiful, filled with stoneware, porcelain, and clay. A small group was gathered around the center of the hall, listening to a short, spunky looking dark haired young man who looked as though he hadn’t had a good night’s rest in some time. Belle linked her arm with her husband’s as they meandered closer to the group to hear the young man’s tour guide information about all the blue and white patterns in the hall.
“...commonly referred to as the ‘willow’ pattern. This is just the term to refer to blue paintings on white surfaces of bone china and other white valuables. Traditionally, this was taken from the Chinese china the English, made famous by Thomas Mil-”
“Actually, it’s taken from the legend of the willow,” Rumpelstiltskin said quietly, with such a calm regality that Belle hardly realized he was interrupting the tour before he continued talking.
“Oh please, don’t do this here,” Belle moaned under her breath, wincing as she dropped her gaze to the floor.
“I beg your pardon?” asked the young man, pushing his stodgy black framed glasses back up his nose.
Rumpelstiltskin smiled, and it was a pleasant, even handsome gesture, but Belle knew he was just meddling now, and even more than that-showing off. Resting his two gloved hands atop the handle of his cane, he tilted his head to the side, peering at the display of the white vase with the elaborate blue artwork. “Your Milton fellow I’m sure made it popular, but he did not, in fact, originate it, my boy.”
When no one spoke out against him, Rumpelstiltskin seemed satisfied enough to continue.
“Legend has it that there was a wealthy man who had a beautiful daughter, pledged to marry a high and stately Duke. However she fell in love with a commoner, a man below her station and she was forbidden by her father to marry him.” Belle grew curious of the tale, enraptured with Rumpelstiltskin’s words just as the rest of the crowd was. Frowning up at her husband, who never betrayed himself and wouldn’t meet her eyes, Belle listened carefully, goosebumps prickling the back of her neck. “Against her father’s wishes, she eloped with her lover and escaped on a ship. The Duke, wanting revenge, chased after them to have them executed, but a sorcerer had mercy on the lovers and transformed them into two beautiful white doves.”
“Like the ones on the plates!” A woman exclaimed, pointing to her brochure excitedly.
“The very same,” Rumpelstiltskin agreed, nodding sagely.
After a quiet moment of composure, the young guide scratched the back of his head, asking, “Do you want to lead the rest of the tour?”
“No,” Belle cleared her throat to mask her impatience, giving her husband an annoyed look askance at his boastful grin. “No, he does not.”
“Don’t I?” Rumpelstiltskin asked wryly as Belle marched him away from the group towards a mannequin near the other end of the hall, displaying a white silk gown with the same blue willow patterns. “I thought I was doing a fairly decent job.”
Spinning around and keeping a firm hold on his hand, Belle narrowed her eyes, smirking, whispering, “You are a know-it-all and a show off, Rumpelstiltskin.”
Mr. Gold actually had the decency to blush, ducking his head. “Well... I’m so very good at it.”
“Too good by half,” Belle muttered, slipping her fingers beneath the silk tie tucked beneath his waistcoat and led him down to her for a kiss. His lips were utterly searing against hers, even though the kiss itself had taken him by surprise, expecting a scolding where he found approval.
A hearty approval.
Nimble fingers rubbed the buttons of his shirt beneath his tie where Belle still had a hold on him, and she smiled against the kiss, lightly dragging her teeth on his lower lip. Her husband pulled back with a flushed huff, clearing his throat as he glanced nervously over the top of her head, ignoring her innocently fluttering eyes. “Now, none of that.”
“If you insist.” Her coy simper was more than he could stand, truth be told, and before she could turn completely away he caught her around the front, hugging her from behind as she turned to face the mannequin with the beautiful silk gown.
“...did you really turn two people into doves?”
There was a moment of silence before he whispered, “I was running out of carrier pigeons.”
Belle snorted, biting her lip hard to keep from laughing outright. She knew when she was being teased by her husband, but she also knew that there was no little amount of truth to his tale. He told her all the time he was a fan of true love. Even if he had exacted some horrid cost from the lovers, she was sure he had helped them, even if it hadn't been out of charity or good will.
Rumpelstiltskin rested his chin on her shoulder, his hands tucking warmly beneath her coat at her waist, and Belle smiled up at the dress, tilting her head thoughtfully.
“You like me in blue, don’t you?”
It was true. He’d given her the blue dress, a coat, ribbons, and once even a beautiful lace fan edged in blue satin. He grew still behind her, his lips pressing a warm kiss to her temple before they brushed her ear, murmuring, “I like you in everything.”
There was a pregnant pause, before he trailed another kiss to the side of her cheek. “Anything.”
Belle pressed her lips together, fighting a grin when he squeezed her playfully in his embrace, finally kissing her neck. “And nothing.”
“But you like blue,” Belle insisted, leaning her head back against his shoulder, her dimples blooming in a smile as he rubbed his barely stubbly cheek against hers in an effort to make her laugh. Belle ignored the distraction.
“Well it’s not because of your eyes,” Rumpelstiltskin sighed airily. When Belle pulled away to face him, he gave her a hard, analytical look before shaking his head defeatedly. “No, that’s not it at all, those eyes just won’t do.”
Laughing, Belle took the lapels of his coat together and smiled up at him, her eyes dropping to his decorative windsor knot. “Blue is cold though,” she reasoned, thinking aloud. She’d never thought much of her own eyes. Blue was an ordinary color, a normal color. Looking back up at him, she kissed his cheek. “Not like brown. Brown is kind, and warm, and expressive. I much prefer brown.”
Mr. Gold swallowed in a gulp, his eyes rounding in his speechlessness, and Belle grinned in triumph to see him practically slip down into his collar like a turtle retreating to his shell. Two years of being married, and what felt sometimes like more than lifetimes spent knowing one another, and she could still reduce him to grasping for words. And, taking full advantage of that, Belle turned back to the dress and smiled. “Silk sounds nice,” she said, after reading the description plate, tilting her head. “Though an awful lot of trouble to make.”
“Not with magic,” her husband chuckled, and Belle rolled her eyes as he pulled away.
Within the same display case, there were two chunky looking pieces of wood, ornately carved with blue and white designs on top. Frowning and tilting her head, Belle leaned down for a closer inspection. “What on earth are those supposed to be?”
“Shoes.”
“They don’t look very comfortable-how do you know that?” she asked, turning around and not registering what she saw. Her husband’s devilish smirk and the white paper in his gloved hand. Belle blinked, then patted her own jacket, finding the brochure gone. Slowly narrowing her eyes, she whispered, “You are so-”
“Look, some stoneware and china,” Rumpelstiltskin grinned, turning on his heel as he proceeded further down the exhibit. “Let’s see if you’ll get us thrown out after all.”
By the time Belle caught up with her husband, he was stopped in front of a small number of people, and she slipped her arm through his to gaze up at the enormous artifact, her mouth falling open as her eyes traveled up and up and up.
“Oh, my...”
“Chinese ladders,” Rumpelstiltskin read, squinting at the pamphlet, licking his lips. “‘Five Storeys.’”
Leaning her chin gently against his arm, she whispered, “Where are your spectacles, Mr. Gold?”
Looking up almost with a roll of his eyes, he let out an annoyed sigh, and Belle stole the brochure back from him with relish. “Ladders? They look like drums stacked on top of one another,” she said happily, reading about the artist.
“The painting of the cobalt, dear. The pattern, those are the ladders,” he explained, his hand gesturing horizontally up the tall work of china. Belle raised her eyebrows, but soon she could make the ladders out in the harsh lines. “It says they’re porcelain,” he added with a lascivious smirk. “Don’t get too close.”
“The only reason I ever chipped that cup was because you frightened me,” Belle sniffed, holding her chin high as she read over the artist, ignoring how he was staring at her. “The first and last time, I’ll have you know.”
“Is that a challenge?”
Snapping her head up, Belle’s eyes nearly came out of her face, hissing, “Don’t you dare!”
Rumpelstiltskin’s mouth quivered as if on the edge of laughter, his dark eyes gleaming in pleasure, but Belle kept her arm tight in the crook of his elbow as if that would prevent him from going anywhere (it would). “If we’re going to donate to the museum, can it just be in money of charity and not recompensation?”
He put on a show of considering the offer, and for a moment she was concerned he’d get into mischief, but he dropped his head and swiftly kissed the top of her cheek in a sweet, nuzzling little gesture. “As you wish, my Belle.”
They observed the rest of the collection in quiet contemplation, with Belle holding Rumpelstiltskin’s arm, murmuring quietly over the depictions of European styles versus those of Asian descent. Belle had a vast knowledge of the latter, and she felt a warm sense of pride when Rumpelstiltskin looked at her as if she’d hidden her mind from him. She laughed a little when he finally dropped their arm and turned to look at her. “Can you speak the language, too?” he asked, and while he was smiling, Belle got the notion that he was quite sincere.
“Not yet,” she teased, feeling her own sense of pleasure at her husband’s doey-eyed smile. “I can read it,” she added, enjoying how his face dropped in surprise, and she grinned. “I told you, I do love a good book.”
When he made no move, only stared at her in that same slightly open mouthed sense of wonder, Belle took his hand and led him on to finish the exhibit, which was mostly lots of stoneware and china, just as promised. Coming to a set of miniature white porcelain windmills with blue transfers, Rumpelstiltskin stood a little taller when Belle leaned her head on his shoulder, and he spoke quietly as if afraid he’d startle her. His voice was curiously nervous, though, and Belle wondered if she’d intimidated the great sorcerer with her extensive studious capacity. The thought made her smile, but she was careful to hide it, lest he take it for teasing. “In the Netherlands, specifically Holland, they were quite known for their windmills.”
“Are they?”
“Many people travel to see them, taking trips to Amsterdam and elsewhere. The colors are supposedly spectacular, depending on the season you go,” he said, his eyes memorizing the lines of the blue transfers on the porcelain.
Belle closed her eyes, the excitement of the day wearing on her. She pressed her cheek against his arm, murmuring, “We should go.”
“I would love to take you. Europe, Asia, wherever you want to go,” Rumpelstiltskin said quickly with such enthusiasm that Belle felt her heart ache in her love for him. At first she thought that it was a slip into his old habit, when he wanted to give her everything he could as if that would make her happy, ensure her love for him. But the way his voice was so tender made Belle think that perhaps it wasn’t another one of his lavish gifts but for his own benefit as much as hers. It brought him pleasure to do these things, to give her things she wanted.
“Well I do want to see the world,” Belle admitted, drawing up and sliding her arm down to curl her fingers between his own. She turned to face him, smiling gently. “But I meant home. For now, at least.” Leaning forward, she pressed the quietest of kisses to Rumpelstiltskin’s lips, a gentle brush, pluck, and smile where their cheeks met.
Rumpelstiltskin hummed low in his throat at the kiss, his hand squeezing hers meaningfully between their gloves. “Home,” he echoed weakly, sighing in approval when Belle stole yet another kiss while neither of them made the effort to leave.
“I would like to see the windmills though,” Belle said shyly, once they parted with flushed cheeks and happy sighs. “And the tulips. Could we really see them?”
Taking her beneath his arm, Rumpelstiltskin began to walk them from the now deserted exhibition hall, chuckling, “I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to put an ocean between us and Storybrooke.”
Walking back out into the foyer was like waking up from a dream, and Belle blinked at the brighter lights, ruffling her nose as she began to button her coat back up as they approached the doors. It had chosen snow over rain, and both husband and wife shivered at the blast of cold air that met them when one of the museum workers opened the door for them. It was startling to find the early evening twilight having set in. It hadn't felt as though they were inside that long. Snow had just begun to fall, making their walk slushy and slick, and Belle kept a firm hold on her husband’s arm, eyeing his cane warily. It was quiet between them as they made it back to their car, but something sitting upon the Cadillac’s shiny black hood made Belle slow to a stop.
Rumpelstiltskin ducked his head bashfully at Belle’s growing smile, and she let her arm slip from his to pick up the perfectly hot cup of tea in her chipped cup, letting it warm through the fabric of her gloves to her hands. She turned as he came up behind her. “The wind could’ve knocked it over,” she said, though no note of disapproval was in her voice.
“I would’ve had it out with him, then.” He brushed a stray curl from her cheek and tucking it behind her ear. “You hold a priceless artifact in your hands, madame,” he said, his voice more like the tour guide again. “Worth more than all the exhibits in Boston’s little museum.”
“Why isn’t it on display then?” Belle challenged, taking a deep sip of the tea. The leaves were sweet, and the milk and sugar made her toes curl inside her shoes.
“Because it’s treasure compared to those other blue and white baubles,” he said gruffly, dismissing the museum with a wave of his hand that made her laugh as she passed him the cup to share the tea. “It had to be found. It’s worth more, you see.”
“It’s chipped,” Belle told him, as if he didn’t know perfectly well.
Rumpelstiltskin raised his eyes from the cup, brown eyes that had never been so warm before, and he glanced down at the bit of china in his hands, considering the mar for a moment. “It increases its value,” he finally said, placing it back in her hands. Leaning down, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Trust me, I know the artist herself.”