intrikate88 | Fic: [OUaT] Double Vision (Belle/Rumpelstiltskin)

Double Vision, Once Upon a Time (Belle/Rumpelstiltskin), g, ~4400 words.

She is insane, she knows. And her name is not Belle.

She escapes often to the woods, or to the library. They are neutral places, where she does not see double, because they are equivalents to another place she knows. Everywhere else in town, she feels as if she is caught in a blizzard, with so many people she recognizes but does not know, and the roar in her head from it all obstructs all visibility. The storm is only in her head, though, and she cannot reach out and grab on to anything solid.

She has looked this up in books, which have given her no real answers; she may have some sort of dissociative identity disorder, though there is no alternate personality: just her. But part of her is a broken-off piece called Belle, and always has been, and she can remember no trauma great enough for her to have coped by dissociating until the real world is a blur. There is a boy, Henry, who comes to the library, with a large book of fairy tales in his backpack. He has told her he thinks she’s Belle, from Beauty and the Beast. She has never told anyone about the other side of herself, and she tells Henry shortly to find the story by Madame le Prince de Beaumont, and to go home before the library closes. He seems hurt by her lack of indulgence in his imagination, but she cannot sympathize when she is so afraid and couldn’t say why.

And yet, she is doing better than her father. He only drew inward and forgot how to live and how to work after her mother died, and she was left to keep things running herself. She was the one to decide that they would move out their house, full of too many memories (she has so many memories she has no way to know which are real anymore) into an apartment they could afford, just to keep the flower shop Moe had inherited from his father. She was the one to realize the only way the business could survive was by expanding, into street vendors and delivery service.

After all the banks turned her father down for a loan, she was the one who mentioned a name she had only heard of: Mr. Gold, who would make deals with the most desperate.

As their supply of roses dwindled and they could get no more credit, they became desperate. Moe French paid Mr. Gold a visit.

She had been cooking supper when her father returned. “How did it go?” she asked, adding tomatoes to the stew.

Her father’s face was pale. “He gave me enough money to buy roses again. And a van. And to hire the new people we’ll need.” He paused. “And if I don’t make payments, he’ll take everything I have.”

“I will make sure that doesn’t happen,” she promised. “I will.”

Her fear inside is familiar; she does not know if she can promise that. But if she says it, maybe it will make it true.

A month passes, and their profits are higher than they have been in years. She carefully counts the money she has set aside for Gold’s payment, and puts it in an envelope. When her father returns from a delivery, she puts on her coat and puts the envelope in her purse. “Thank God for you,” Moe says, resting a hand on her shoulder. “I had forgotten it was due today.”

“I thought I would take care of one thing on your to-do list today,” she says lightly. She does not say: I know you forgot. He has never been the one to keep a level head in a situation, all bluster and noble robes—but no. They are not nobles saving a kingdom. Just a shadow of a man, and his daughter, who wanted roses again.

When she pushes the door of the pawn shop, she has to pause, and fight for breath. There are wooden dolls on the counter, and she sees them in a palace. The shop is dim, and she wants to yank open the curtains, but there are none. The whole palace—the whole place, could use a good dusting. It is too much, too big for her head, and she stumbles back, trying to get outside where she can blink the visions from her eyes in the harsh sunlight.

A hand touches her elbow. “Looking for me, dearie?”

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them again as she turns to face him. “Mr. Gold?” she says, steadying her voice. He cannot be here. She cannot have remembered so acutely the voice of a man she has never met. “I—I came to deliver the payment. For my father, Moe French. “

“Ah, yes. The flower seller.” Mr. Gold wears a suit, and leans on a cane, and his skin is like anyone else’s. His reputation is like no one else’s. In that regard, he has not changed a bit. “Sent you, did he?”

“I decided to come myself,” she says, her voice growing stronger. “Just to make sure that the deal was kept properly.” She takes the envelope from her purse, and hands it over to him. Moving around behind the counter and leaving her standing alone, he opens the envelope, counts his money.

“Well, that it is, Miss French,” he confirms. “And as long as payments are made on time every month, it will continue to be kept.”

“Of course,” she says. (Belle remembers his arm about her waist, guiding her down the castle stairs. No. She remembers nothing at all.)

“I don’t remember you having stopped in my shop before, care to look around?” she hears him say distantly. She mumbles a reply, and drifts around. She’ll know what she’s looking for when she sees it, but she knows everything in this shop already.

“There’s a tea set, isn’t there?” she finds herself asking. She looks back at Gold, and he has gone still, the sardonic smile vanished from his face. And the next second, the expression has cleared from his face entirely.

“Right behind you, dearie,” he says. She turns around, and her sleeve catches the handle of one delicate cup. It totters off the edge of the tray, falling towards the floor (it is only a cup, it is only a cup) and she fumbles, catching it once in her fingers before it falls to the floor (it is only a cup). It does not shatter, as she expected. But then, she had never genuinely expected that at all. She crouches to pick it up (it is only a cup).

“I’m sorry, I’m so—but look, it’s just barely chipped on this edge, you can hardly see it.” Her words spill out in a rush. She is repeating herself. She has never said that before. (It is only a cup!)

Mr. Gold looks at the cup in her hands, looks at her. “It is only a cup,” he says, coming around to take it from her hands. She smiles at him in desperate relief—it is not a matter of consequence, he has said the right words—and she can’t read his face.

“But you’d best be on your way,” he adds, “I’m sure your father needs you.”

He is not looking at her when she turns back as she opens the door. He is holding the cup, his eyes closed, and his fingers tracing the ragged, chipped edge as if its contours were the most familiar thing in the world.

No, Belle thinks, not again, God, I can’t take it again. No, she thinks, I am not Belle. That is not my name. I do not remember anything.

The next month, Moe merely smiles at her gratefully, and somewhat abashedly, when she puts the envelope of money in her purse. She knows he has not kept track of the money again, and he knows that she knows, and that some part of him is dying because she is his child and she must be the responsible one.

As she approaches the pawn shop, she sees Mr. Gold standing at the window, his eyes searching the street. But when she walks inside, he is sitting behind the counter, reading through his records. He looks up at her. “I wasn’t expecting you to return, dearie,” he says.

“I wasn’t going to,” Belle replies. She crushes the voice down. She will not let it go this way. She says, “But my father needs my help.”

Mr. Gold counts the money, but perfunctorily, as if he already knows it will all be there.

“You make deals with so many people,” she continues. “Why? How much money and power do you really need?”

“It’s not about need. Keeps me busy, helps me to forget.”

“Forget what?” she can’t help herself from saying.

Gold pauses, as he was always meant to do, as he always does, again and again in the litany of her head. “I suppose it worked.” He laughs. She laughs too, because it is curious how similar he is. And deep inside her, Belle is laughing too, standing on a ladder, laughing, they are laughing together and don’t know why, she is pulling on curtains, there are no curtains, she is falling, falling, there is nothing but forever in this moment falling—

He catches her as she crumples, before her head hits the floor. Gold moves fast for a man with a limp. She blinks woozily; he squints at her with concern, perhaps; it looks like he is squinting at the sudden invasion of sunlight. After a minute, she pushes herself into sitting up, and he scrambles back, as if just realizing the closeness of their contact.

“Thank you,” she says. “Sometimes I get these… these spells.”

She can’t help but notice the way he winces at the word.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he says, using his cane to lever himself to his feet, then holding out a hand to pull her up from the ground. “Have a cup of tea with me and make sure you’re alright, and I’ll let you leave. But not before then.”

“Deal,” she says, and smiles at him, her jailor.

Over tea in the shop’s back room, he asks why she does so much for her father, and she tells him of her mother’s death, the silent house, the empty liquor bottles and emptier fridge. Of how she figured out the books and how she researched how to make a business run again. How her father has never really recovered and sometimes still gets drunk and she knows that he is angry with the universe, in the form of his daughter, for being robbed of the ability to be a breadwinning husband and father.

It is a lot to tell to a man she has met twice. But Belle finds the words spilling out, as they have to no one else before but him; she has told him this story, only slightly changed, before and it takes no effort to tell it again.

This is her life, she reminds herself, and she has lived it only once. “I didn’t want my father’s weaknesses to decide my life for me. I decide my own fate,” she concludes, her second cup of tea down to its last cold dregs. “It—it isn’t easy. But I thought that if I did something about… everything, then the strength to do it would come after.”

“And has it?” he asks.

She sets down her teacup. “I’m still finding out.”

The next few months pass quickly; the delivery service is especially successful, which means more financial considerations of gas, of drivers to be paid, of setting money aside for another van. There is money, but not that much. Still, Mr. Gold’s payments come first. She has heard his unkind jokes, and more about his reputation: he is not a generous man, and no one loves him for his helpful deals, but many fear him. Belle is not afraid of him, though. She brings him a rose, once, on a day when no payment is due. He seems startled, but not displeased, by the gift, or perhaps by her unrequired presence. “I thought you should see where your loan went,” she says. “All I ever wanted was roses.”

“I know,” he answers, and turns away to find something to put the rose in.

“I barely know you,” she continues. “I’ve told you all about me, but what have you always wanted?”

He turns back to her, his eyebrow arched and a crafty expression on his face. “Come to find out my secrets? Blackmail material, perhaps? Half the people in this town would line up for the chance to see you bring me down.”

He is teasing her, and she can’t hide her smile. She leans on the counter, and puts her chin in her hands. “I haven’t heard of anybody who knows more about you than what meets the eye,” she says. “Maybe I just like uncovering mysteries.”

Love is a mystery to be uncovered, Belle thinks. Belle knows what there is of him beyond what meets the eye. But she does not accept Belle’s thoughts.

“I don’t want for things, dearie, as you can see,” Mr. Gold says finally, waving a hand at his shop. “Once I had a family, and I lost them. “

“A son?” Belle ventures.

“Yes. There was a son,” Mr. Gold says, tilting his head. “Perhaps I only want what I can never get back.”

Belle wonders if there is an apology in his words.

She reaches out, and touches his hand. “Sometimes what’s lost can come back,” she says, and doesn’t know why.

His eyes search hers, and he thinks he is trying to recognize her in some way. He looks how she always feels when she walks around town dizzy with double images of another life that could never have existed.

He pulls away his hand. “And sometimes they are gone forever.” It sounds more as if he is trying to remind himself instead of telling her anything.

She turns to leave, then hesitates. “That rose wasn’t from the shop,” she says. “I started a rose garden out in the woods, from some plants that would have been thrown away and a few good grafts. That’s one of my roses.”

“I am honored,” he says, and while his tone is almost sardonic she is sure his words are genuine.

“Even rose bushes that look dead can still have life in them.” Then she leaves.

At the library one day after that, she runs into Henry. “I’m sorry,” she tells him.

“What for?” he asks curiously.

“For being so sharp when you said you thought I was Belle,” she answers.

For once, her perception of the world around her is clear enough that she sees the relief and triumph wash over his face. He does not see the despair on hers. She thought she could be strong enough, if she just took enough weight upon herself. But she is not strong enough to hold off the howling cursed blackness that threatens her mind whenever Belle intrudes, and it feels like it is taking her apart, piece by piece. If she is not Belle, then she is insane. If she is Belle... she knows how this story goes, how it is already going, how it ends.

Her next payment, and he smiles when he sees her walk in. “And how is your rose garden doing?” he asks, after she hands him the envelope. He doesn’t bother to count it anymore.

“Good,” she answers. “But a bit neglected, lately. My father has had something on his mind, which he won’t tell me, and it means more work for me. I haven’t been able to tend it as much.”

“If you need a hand, I could help keep an eye on it, pull a few weeds,” he offers. “I have some spare time.”

“I’m sure we could arrange some sort of deal,” she replies, not as a trade, merely as a figure of speech.

“No deals,” he says. “No deals are necessary.”

She smiles. “Thank you.” And he smiles crookedly back, and some sharp wall inside of her loses a brick and some mortar. “One of the people you loved, who you lost… what was their name?”

His smile vanishes, and his eyes flicker across her face searchingly. “Her name was…” he starts, very quietly. “Her name was Belle.”

Blackness blows across her sight like clouds before the wind. She runs from his shop, as fast as her legs will go, and does not say goodbye.

The next month is as busy as the last. That is why she does not stop in Rum-- in Mr. Gold’s shop as she runs errands, but when she has the odd moment to hike out to her rose garden, she finds it weeded and her bushes pruned. She buries her hands in the soil, trying to root herself like her plants, letting the earth settle her. She has collapsed twice in the past month, her vision lost as unthinking panic twists around inside her stealing her breath. The air is pure out in the forest, the trees the same as the ones she remembers from another place. She can breathe here and pretend that she knows where she is. Even the library is hardly a refuge; it is full of stories, as she is, and only wishes she were an organized building, not exploding with those stories. “You were right,” she tells Henry. “I am cursed.”

When it is time to make the payment, she goes to Mr. Gold’s house on a Sunday afternoon, when the shop is closed.

He hesitates when he opens the door and sees her.

“May I come in?” she asks.

Wordlessly, he gestures, and she walks past him, her shoulder brushing against his chest. She drops the envelope on a side table and forgets it immediately. “Thank you. For helping with my garden. I can’t imagine it’s easy on your knee.”

He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. It is an easy enough thing.”

“I never saw you when I went out there.”

“Did... did you want to?” His tone is cautious. “I thought-- as long as you are not there to tend to your roses, I will do it.”

They are talking and not talking and she feels helpless. “You-- you said the woman you lost was Belle.”

If he is surprised by the sudden change in subject, he doesn’t show it. “I did.”

She breathes. Looks around at the collection of things in his house. It is so familiar; she has held every item. She takes a step closer to him, closes her eyes, and finally gives up fighting all the memories, all the endless loops of time. “Rumpelstiltskin. You never lost me. I was never an object to be lost. But I was hoping to be found, because you never lost my love,” Belle says.

She does not open her eyes until he draws her close and kisses her forehead. “I am too weak,” she whispers, “I tried to be strong. But I am not brave enough to be, am I?”

He cups her face in his hands. “Belle. You once told me that if you do the brave thing, that maybe bravery will follow.”

“I remember,” Belle says. She adds, “I’m not supposed to remember.”

“You weren’t,” he agrees. “But you are brave. Brave enough to let yourself remember who you are.”

“You remember, Rumplestiltskin.” She leans her head against his shoulder. “The last thing I called you was a coward.”

“That you did, dearie. And you weren’t wrong. You still aren’t.”

“Do you still not understand that I could love you?” Belle tries to take a step away, to better glare at him, but he holds her by the shoulders.

“I still don’t. But maybe for once I can do the brave thing.”

Belle tilts her face up to him, and waits. He draws her closer, and after a moment’s pause, presses his lips to hers. His hands drop so he can wrap his arms around her waist.

It is not a kiss that is magical, not a kiss that breaks curses. It is merely an ordinary kiss. And somehow, to Belle, that makes it the most extraordinary kiss.

Because she knows what must follow it. She deepens the kiss, just for a moment, and then pulls back. Belle murmurs, “How much time do you think we have?”

She sees the colors of the stained glass from his front door play over his suit. “I can give you a home,” he answers, a little pleadingly, like he has wanted to tell her that before.

There is so much darkness inside my head, she wants to say. Whatever curse is over everyone else slips and cannot take root inside of her; she has worn herself out trying to make it grow, but now she sees it for what it is. And she is Belle, and this story has not found a happy ending yet.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says helplessly. “I have brought the curse with me. I’ve always carried it. I chip the cup. I go away, I come back. I kiss you.”

“You leave me,” he replies quietly.

“I leave you,” she agrees.

“The last time,” he says, “you stayed for a night before leaving.”

The story plays on, tale as old as time.

Belle comes home the next morning and finds the witch--the mayor--the Queen--Regina Mills having coffee in her kitchen with her father.

“What is going on?” she asks.

Regina slides a cup towards her. “Sit down, my dear. Your father and I were just having a chat. We’ve been very concerned about you, you know.”

She sits. The story never changes, though this is an interesting variation. “I didn’t know. Why?” She is already sipping her coffee.

“You’ve been... acting a bit strangely, lately,” Moe says awkwardly. “I know you’ve had a hard time since your mum died. Always been in your head, or in a book. But I’ve heard you talking about people who don’t... who aren’t real.”

“And your collapsing,” Regina adds, laying a motherly hand over Belle’s. Belle knows the Queen will grow craftier if she withdraws.

“It is nothing,” she says, “just some stress. I haven’t been eating regularly.”

“Or it could be worse,” Regina replies firmly. Belle’s head is swimming, and she sips more of her coffee, hoping the caffeine will clear it. There is an old spell she needs to remember.

“The mayor has arranged a way for you to stay in hospital for a bit, and see what’s the matter,” Moe says.

“I know you have been struggling financially. It’s my job to make sure that there are ways for neighbors to help each other in times of need,” Regina says sympathetically. “Especially in... cases like yours, where you might not even know you have a problem.”

The Queen has always been so, so sympathetic. It is her favorite way to deliver poison.

Poison.

Belle looks at her cup. “You’ve drugged me,” she says, or think she says. “Your majesty, I’m not crazy. I am the only one not crazy.”

“See?” says Regina to Moe, sadly.

Belle remembers the spell. It is barely a spell. “Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpelstiltskin, Rumpelstiltskin!” she shouts, standing up, spilling her coffee across the table. He is supposed to come when called three times. She remembers. Three times.

Her Beast does not appear.

But then, that is how the story goes. He never did come for her. He may have waited, but he never came for her.

Her father is looking anxious. “That’s what she calls Mr. Gold sometimes. She’s always worst when she comes from seeing him.”

“He can have that effect on people. He’s not a good man,” Regina says to Moe sadly.

“He’s better than you, you witch, you used me!” Belle says, her voice growing hoarser. The room is tilting, the small kitchen pitching over sideways as the peeling linoleum floor rises up to meet her. Her head hits the ground, but she does not pass out. The Queen slips from her chair to kneel beside Belle, leaning over to lift up her head.

“I don’t know what he did to you back then to keep you out of my curse,” Regina whispers, “but he won’t have a chance to finish it. You are dangerously mentally ill, my dear, and you are going away for a long, long time. It would just be better for everyone to think you killed yourself.”

“I wouldn’t,” Belle says. “He’ll never believe that.”

“He did before,” Regina says, with a vicious smile. Moe has gone to the sink, to get a cold damp towel for his daughter’s forehead.

“I think she may be worse than we feared,” the Queen says loudly enough for Moe to hear. “She may need to be in the hospital for a long time. But don’t worry, I’m here for you, Mr. French. Your town is here for you.”

“What about Mr. Gold?” Moe asks. “I don’t want ‘im visiting her in hospital.” He lays a cloth across Belle’s forehead. She is losing to the darkness.

“It could trigger her condition if he did,” Regina agrees. “It’s best if you tell him she was a troubled girl who overdosed.”

Moe looks at Belle wretchedly, as if he doesn’t know his own daughter at all (he doesn’t), and does not know if she actually is that girl. She finds that stings, distantly, that after everything her father knows so little about her.

But her last thought, before the darkness closes over her brain, is that Rumpelstiltskin promised. He would take care of her roses when she was not there. This time, she has left him with a slightly less empty heart, a chipped cup, and roses.

It will have to do.

She awakens in a cell, by herself. A tray of food is being shoved through the slot in the door. “Wait,” she says, her mouth dry. “If-- if you can-- may I have a rose?”

But she is insane. And no one calls her Belle, only the name on her chart.

There will be no roses. But for nearly a year, she was happy, and she had roses.