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As he threw open the door in a majestic gesture, he looked around the empty kitchen, his hands coming to rest on his hips as he frowned even deeper.

He had no time for these games, and so he whisked to her room – then to the library – then even to the bathroom he let her use.

She wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere.

Biting his lip, he grew worried.

Had she ran away?

The thought felt like a stab to the heart. She had given her word to stay with him forever, and she had even seemed to be at peace here. The past weeks, she hadn’t cried a single time. He had even heard her laugh at his quips a few times, and a few days earlier she had baked him cookies!

They had been a little tough to chew, but the gesture itself had been a good-natured one, and had displayed her amiable nature. She would not offend him in this way, or would she?

Wherever she had gone, he could follow her there with the help of a tracking potion. Whisking into his working chambers, he stepped straight towards the cabinet that held his most valuable belongings, and stopped walking when he realized the cabinet was wide open, and there was a book on the floor in front of it.

His heart stopped for a brief moment.

She had expressed curiosity in his work on several occasions. But he had not expected her to snoop around his working chambers, not after he had strictly told her it was forbidden.

Crouching down to look at the book she had picked from the cabinet, he sighed.

Of course. It was the fairy tale of Rapunzel that had piqued her interest, and she must have been curious why he had kept such a lovely volume among his most lethal potions and weapons, instead of in the library.

Picking up the book, he closed it without reading a word and put it down on the table, a pained expression on his face.

He could already imagine why she had taken it.

She had probably expected nothing but a fairy tale – and she had thought she’d be reading a story – like any other – but what she had not realized was that this book was enchanted. Whoever read it, would get trapped in there, and would need to survive the perils of the story if they had any hope of ever making their way out of there.

Now she was stuck in the fairy tale of Rapunzel, and he grunted as he remembered how it went. She was probably waiting in a tower now, for a prince of some sort to come, and he wasn’t even sure if the prince was already in the story, or if she could only be released by someone else that underwent the curse.

When he had gotten this book, it had been a trinket to him, something he could one day trade away for other valuable dark magic, certainly not something he’d willingly get stuck in himself.

But as he stood there, he felt like he had to get her out of there. He was her best hope for getting out of there – her only hope. And how hard could it be? He had magic, he’d find the tower, get her out of there, kill whatever witch held her there, and they’d be back in the Dark Castle before anyone could say “and they lived happily ever after”.

Sighing, he shook his head as he opened the book. All it took to follow her, was to read a few lines, and so he began.

“Once upon a time, in a faraway land…”

+++

He groaned as the first light of day woke him from what felt like a very short nap. For someone who hadn’t slept in centuries, it was an odd sensation, and he rubbed his eyes as he sat up.

But as he sensed that he was on a bed, his eyes flew open immediately, and he tried to take in every peculiar thing about this situation as quickly as he could.

He was in a small but cozy bedroom that looked out over a larger round room. He spotted a large window with a view on a forest. Strangely enough, he was wearing leather – but not his fancy dragon leather, but regular brown leather and his hands… He raised them in wonder as he realized they weren’t scaly at all!

But if he wasn’t scaly, then he wondered if he was still the Dark One in whatever alternate reality he found himself in? Trying to summon some magic to his fingertips, he realized that he was completely failing at it, and he tried to crawl off the bed in horror, stumbling over a pile of rope and clumsily falling to the floor.

Grunting, he got up as fast as he could, suddenly realizing that the rope wasn’t rope. It was hair. And as he suddenly noticed how his head felt heavier than usually, he cursed when he realized the hair was his.

“For fuck’s sake!” He tried to gather the long braid in his arms, wondering how long the bloody thing was.

That was just his luck. He was the Rapunzel of the story.

But then who was Belle?

With the massive braid still in his arms, he headed to the window as fast as he could, gazing out over the infinite forest before him.

“Hello?” he called out as loudly as he could. “Can anyone hear me?”

“What’s gotten into you?”

He jumped before he whirled around and stared straight into Regina’s mildly skeptical face.

“Regina,” he said, surprised to see her here.

“What did you just call me?”

As she walked over to him and felt his forehead with the back of her hand, she frowned.

“You don’t have a fever, so tell me why you’re being so delusional this morning?”

He watched her as she turned her back to him and put a basket of provisions on the table. He spotted some bread, cheese and fruit, as well as a few bottles to drink.

As he stood there and just watched her, she grew more impatient.

“Come on, Rumplestiltskin, empty it. Are you still sleeping?”

He was terribly confused. She didn’t seem to be called Regina, yet she still called him Rumplestiltskin. Deciding it was safest to play along, he dropped his braids to the floor, dragging them behind him as he walked to the table and emptied the basket, realizing there was enough food in there for a few days.

“Now I must be off for a while,” Regina – or whoever she was – announced. “Anything you need upon my return?”

Rumplestiltskin shook his head but noticed Regina had taken his braid in her hand.

“Good,” she said. “Now sing.”

He frowned, not sure why, but seeing Regina’s impatient gaze, he quickly nodded.

He hadn’t sang in years.

“Which song?” he asked, hoping with a fast beating heart that he knew whatever the witch would ask.

She considered it for a few moments, before she said: “The Daemon Lover, if you please.”

He didn’t know if he was lucky that he knew that particular tune from when he had been small, or whether somehow, the people in this world were made of his imagination – and perhaps also Belle’s.

As he began to sing, he suddenly realized how his long ash-brown hair got the slightest glow upon it as it lay in Regina’s hand, and he witnessed how she closed her eyes, her entire being looking younger the more he sang.

When she raised her hand, halfway through the song, he stopped his singing immediately, and she got up and gently slapped his cheek, in something which she had meant to pass as some form of affection, perhaps?

“Thank you, Rumplestiltskin. Until soon!”

She whisked away before him, and as he put his hair in his hands and softly sang another tune, he saw how his hair gently glowed again. Each single tune, no matter how silly it was, had the same effect, and he tried to recollect as much about the fairy tale as he could.

He had never really read it, but could remember bits and pieces from his childhood.

In the fairy tale, Rapunzel was locked in the tower when she was a child, by a witch, because her parents had stolen from the witch? He wasn’t sure how the story went. But Rapunzel had been a princess. Did that mean that he was a prince in this world? And if Belle was not Rapunzel, and not the witch, did that mean that she was the prince who was meant to save Rapunzel?

It was either that, or maybe she was stuck in her own universe, facing the same villain he was.

As he gazed out of the window, he wondered how he could get Belle to find him while he was stuck in his tower. Calling out had apparently gotten the attention of Regina – or perhaps she had always come in the morning – he wasn’t sure.

Lowering his braid out of the tower, he was glad to see that it actually reached all the way into the grass beneath, and he left it out as he sat in the windowsill, singing tune after tune in the hopes that his voice would reach far enough for anyone who passed through the forest to hear.

But as evening fell, he realized that no one was around, and he was getting increasingly hungry and tired.

After eating some bread, he laid himself to rest, falling into a blissful sleep.

+++

It was still dark when he woke because he heard someone calling out.

“Rapunzel! Rapunzel let down your hair!”

His heart beat a little faster as he realized whose voice that was.

It was Belle’s – and apparently she was under the impression that Rapunzel was in the tower. A little ashamed to show his face just yet, he threw his long braid out the window, and as he felt her pull it, he tried not to yelp.

Holding onto his braid with both his hands, he felt her weight hang onto it, and though he sensed her movement, he still stepped back himself, hoping to pull her up a little faster, so that there would be less chance of her falling.

When she finally climbed into the window, Rumplestiltskin gulped, surprised by the sight of his Belle wearing an adventurer’s outfit, her tight pants leaving little to the imagination, and her messy hair and fierce blush betraying just how hard the climb had been to her.

As she saw him, she gasped, her eyes wide for a few moments as she stared at him with an open mouth.

“Rapunzel?” she finally asked, her voice uncertain.

He frowned, wondering if she didn’t remember him then.

“You know very well who I am,” he replied, and her mouth dropped completely this time.

“Rumplestiltskin?!” she asked incredulously, walking closer to him as she looked at him from top to toe, hardly able to believe what she saw. “Your skin… Your hair… You’re… you look human!”

“Obviously,” he replied sarcastically, folding his arms over one another. “And you have some apologizing to do!” he added sternly. “Had I not strictly forbidden you to go into any of the lockers and cupboards of my working chambers?!”

She gulped and looked down. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I thought you had misplaced this book.”

Rolling his eyes, he indicated one of the two chairs around the only table he had in his tower, and as she took a seat, so did he, and he lit a few candles with matches, the moonlight not enough to illuminate the two of them.

“You’ve gotten us in quite a mess,” he muttered, careful to emphasize the anger and disappointment in his tone. “We have to make sure we get out of this story now, the sooner the better.”

Belle gulped. “I thought you weren’t coming for me,” she admitted. “It’s been so long.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about? I saw you at breakfast this morning!”

Belle’s eyes widened. “What?! No! I mean… Not my morning! I’ve been here for months!”

“Months?” he repeated, a sensation of horror sinking to the pit of his stomach.

“Yes!” she continued in a hurry. “I’ve been training to be a knight! To fight! And then I met a king – he looked like King Midas – and he told me he lost his daughter Rapunzel! That’s why I came to look for you! It took me months to find your tower!”

“I’ve only been here since this morning,” Rumplestiltskin added, frowning. “You said the king looked like King Midas?”

“Yes, but it’s not King Midas. In fact, I’ve seen many people I knew from somewhere. Like, everyone I saw here looked like someone I already knew in my real life. That’s why I didn’t realize it was actually you!”

Rumplestiltskin sighed. “That explains why the witch that’s holding me here looks like Queen Regina. She’s the most powerful witch I know, which might explain why she took on the form of the villain of the story.”

As he spotted her soft gaze on his eyes, he grew a little nervous. He wondered why she was looking at him so sweetly.

“I’m glad I’m not alone anymore,” she said softly. “Thank you for coming for me, Rumplestiltskin.”

He waved it away as he averted his eyes. “No matter.”

She was still looking at him though, and he could feel it.

“Your eyes are really beautiful this way,” she remarked, and at the surprise of hearing such a thing, his gaze shot up immediately, his lips slightly parted as he looked at her in wonder.

He saw how she was looking at his hair with a smile, before she diverted his attention from the awkward topic.

“I know many versions of this fairy tale,” Belle continued. “But in most, the hero is supposed to push the witch out of the window.”

Rumplestiltskin nodded. “I figured something similar.”

“But there are stranger versions too. Where the hero falls in love with Rapunzel and she gets pregnant, and only when the witch finds out, the confrontation follows.”

Rumplestiltskin gulped. He was quite certain he could not get pregnant – fairy tale or not.

“And there’s one where the witch wins and both the prince and Rapunzel end up either dead or very unhappy.”

That wasn’t a happy prospect, and as Belle saw how worried he looked, she added: “But I’m certain we’ll think of something that will close this curse. When is the witch coming? In the morning?”

Rumplestiltskin shook his head. “Might be a few more days. She was gone for a while.”

Belle looked worried. “I don’t like being unable to tell when she will be here. Does she call for you to lower your hair each time she needs to get in?”

“Afraid not. She can whisk. Like I once could.”

She grunted, and Rumplestiltskin found it a funny sound. She didn’t look quite as elegant as before in the clothes she was currently wearing, and from her behavior it seemed like she had become quite the adventurer.

“I don’t like that,” she admitted. “She can just whisk in at any moment. How are we supposed to get an advantage on that?”

Rumplestiltskin stroked his chin for a few moments, before he suddenly snapped his fingers.

“I got something!”

+++

“Help! Help!”

Rumplestiltskin cried out as pathetically as he could, clutching his trembling hand as red liquid dripped from it.

As Regina – or the witch – whisked into the room, he knew the plan was working.

“Can’t I leave you alone for one day?” she asked angrily, rushing over to him and looking at his hand.

She was about to heal it when she realized it wasn’t blood at all, but paint, and the next thing she knew, she felt a sword ram through her heart, as Belle had emerged from her hiding place behind the cupboard and jammed her sword as well as she could into the witch’s chest.

Rumplestiltskin wasted no time, and as the witch was still grasping what was happening, he pushed her against the windowsill, then lifted her feet until she lost her balance and flipped backwards, landing a few seconds later in an awkward heap on the grass below them.

As both Belle and Rumplestiltskin looked out the window and at the lifeless body beneath them, they hardly dared to breathe.

“Is she dead?” Belle whispered.

Rumplestiltskin bit the inside of his cheek. “She’s not moving. Must be.”

As they stared at the witch a while longer, they both let out a relieved sigh, smiling at one another for a brief while before they looked around the tower room.

“And they lived happily ever after,” Belle said solemnly, gazing up at the ceiling, as though she was hoping to finish the tale this way, but nothing happened.

Looking at Rumplestiltskin for help, he looked just as confused as she was.

“Maybe we haven’t acted out the story the way the book wants?” Rumplestiltskin said darkly, his hands folded in his lap as he rested his back against the table.

Belle went with her hair to his braid, picking some part up as it lay around the room, and looking at it for a long while.

“Usually the braid gets cut, doesn’t it?” she wondered out loud, and as he nodded, she continued: “Do you have scissors?”

Shaking his head, he added: “I checked this place for everything of use. But there weren’t any scissors. Maybe you should use your sword.”

There was still blood on it, and Rumplestiltskin didn’t even protest as she wiped the blood off the curtains. As long as she didn’t do such a thing in the Dark Castle, he wasn’t going to complain.

Approaching him, she hesitated: “Would you like to do it yourself?”

Nodding, he took her sword and held it to his braid, cutting it off a little above shoulder length. Nothing special happened, even though Belle held her breath.

She was expecting something – some magic sign that they could go home now – but the long braid just fell to the floor.

“And they lived happily ever after,” Rumplestiltskin now said – hoping those words would trigger the end of the curse, but once again they just remained in the tower.

While he was thinking what else to do, he hardly realized how Belle had stepped closer to him – much closer to him, and as he felt her hands stroke through his hair, he looked at her in surprise.

“Fairy tales often end with a kiss,” she said softly, and as he noticed how she was looking at his lips, he nodded, his mind numb.

He could not help but notice the way she licked hers before she let them rest upon his, their bodies not touching as they leaned into each other as softly as they could. The kiss was sweet and left Rumplestiltskin with a warm feeling he had missed for a long time, and Belle felt very light-headed as she pulled back again, already missing the feeling of his soft lips on hers.

She hadn’t considered the act very long – she had hardly considered it at all – but now it was hard to stop considering it. She wanted to kiss him again, for it had been the sweetest feeling she had ever experienced, and there had been something else inside of her that had longed for more. Part of her wanted to give into that, but another part was terrified of what he would think about it.

She was his inferior, at least in the Dark Castle, but perhaps here she was something else. And somewhere over the past weeks, she had grown to care for him, even if he was the Dark One.

He looked tired, the thoughts that were going through his mind heavy, even if her kiss had been so light. Wanting it to be over, he said once more: “And they lived happily ever after.”

But nothing happened, and they were both left awkwardly standing there, wondering what else they needed to do.

“Perhaps…” Belle said. “Perhaps I must bring you to your father. To King Midas, or whoever he is in this story.”

He didn’t have a better idea and nodded. He was starting to fear that if she had been here for so many weeks, perhaps they had to stay in this world a few weeks longer.

+++

Getting out of the tower wasn’t easy. They used his long braid to climb down, but Rumplestiltskin had never been fond of heights, and he had trembled every inch he had dared to lower himself.

By the time he landed besides Belle in the grass, she had already dragged Regina’s lifeless corpse a little further away, and as she noticed his trembling hands, she took one in an attempt to comfort him.

“It’s alright,” she said softly. “This was the most dangerous part of the trip. Now it’s just a lot of walking, I suppose. But I know the way.”

He didn’t even object to the comforting way in which she spoke to him. In the Dark Castle, that tone would have been dealt with by a fierce and playful one on his accord, but now he was scared that perhaps they would be stuck for a while longer – perhaps forever – and his unhappy thoughts made it hard to protest anything.

She gathered her own belongings from beside a tree where she had hidden those. It was a bedroll and some food that she had gathered in a bag, nothing more, but he was glad that she was more prepared than he was.

They walked until nightfall, and Rumplestiltskin watched Belle as she made them a campfire. She seemed to be in charge, having gathered their provisions from the tower, and as she offered him a blanket, he took it and wrapped it around himself. It was already getting darker, and as Belle looked up to the sky, he followed her gaze.

“It should be a clear night,” she said. “We should be able to sleep in some caves the following nights. It shouldn’t take more than a week or two to reach the palace.”

He listened, but he didn’t reply, too occupied with his own thoughts, and as Belle sat down, she looked at him for a long while.

“I’m sorry,” she said as the fire continued to crackle. “I know it’s my fault we’re here.” She sighed deeply. “I know there’s no way in which I can make it up to you.”

He considered her words and could only look at her for a long while, and when he finally spoke, his voice sounded very tired: “Let’s just focus on getting back, alright? If what you said is true and you’ve been here for weeks already, then it’s only been minutes for our bodies in our own world. We should be fine a while longer.”

She nodded in response to his words, and as he lay down to sleep, she remained quiet, not waiting too long before she too sought the warmth of her blanket and closed her eyes.

+++

They hardly spoke while they travelled, both set on returning home as soon as possible, but sometimes Belle spotted his dark eyes on her as she led the way, and he didn’t look calculating or evil in those moments – just… different.

He was amazed by how much she seemed to be enjoying this adventurer’s life. Every now and then, she would set up a trap in the evening, and empty it the following morning and proudly show him the food she had caught. She was more self-sufficient than he was, and he was the Dark One, for crying out loud.

Once he got over his self-pity and realized that this human dream-body was getting hungrier by the day, he actively started looking for food, picking berries and nuts wherever he found them, and sharing them with Belle.

She wasn’t an expert in recognizing what was edible or not, having too little real-life experience with exploring forests, and whenever he inquired, she shared with him the story of her training, and how she had been taught enough to survive these forests. Meanwhile he taught her as well as he could about the food they were able to find on their journey.

By the time they reached an actual path in the middle of the forest, they were both relieved, and that relief only grew when they were starting to encounter the first houses and villages on their road to the palace of King Midas.

They spent a few nights in barns, and another in an inn, and they had both felt awkward at the prospect of sharing a bed together. But there hadn’t really been a reason for the awkwardness. They had slept with their backs turned on each other, as far from the middle of the bed as was possible, still fully clothed with nothing but their boots besides the bed.

She didn’t know why, but during their journey it had become clearer to her that she fancied him. He was handsome and mysterious and though he had every reason to curse at her for trapping them in this book, he didn’t. He didn’t seem happy, but he didn’t work out his frustration on her, and in turn she tried to lift his spirits.

During one particularly rainy day, it was hard to make him smile though, and they were both soaking wet by the time they arrived at an inn. The inn was so crowded that they couldn’t even get a room, and it took ages for their food to be served. As Rumplestiltskin resigned to the idea of continuing their travels to the next town, even though it was two hours further and it was already dark, Belle left him to his meal alone and instead headed into the village.

By the time she joined him in the inn again, she had slightly better news.

“I found us a place to stay!”

As she finally sat down behind her plate, she ate as fast as she could, and as he watched her he wondered what he had done to deserve her company – even if her table manners weren’t very proper in that moment.

The moment she was done, she got up again, and she took his hand to lead him outside, back into the pouring rain again, and he hoped he would be inside again soon.

But what she led him to, was a small carriage, and the driver at the front tipped his hat to them both, not drawing any further attention to them as they got into the carriage, and Rumplestiltskin looked at Belle with a confused expression.

“This one travels to the palace. He recognized me from my training days,” she explained as she lowered some blinds over the tiny windows, just to keep the rain and cold out. “We should get there in a day or so.”

Though it was cold and not the way Rumplestiltskin had hoped to spend the night, it would lead them closer to the King, and thus to the end of the story. He offered her a small smile.

“Well played, Belle. Let’s hope we’ll arrive soon.”

As they sat beside each other, Belle took some blankets out from underneath the seat in front of them, and offered one to him and kept one for herself.

“Let’s hope we don’t get sick. It is still cold and we’re quite wet.”

He nodded. “Can’t the carriage stop at an inn?”

Belle shook her head. “He won’t. He needs to return to the palace as soon as possible. I’m glad he didn’t mind waiting.”

As the carriage travelled through the kingdom, they both tried to sleep, though it wasn’t any fulfilling sleep, and they were aching all over by the time they finally arrived at the palace the following day.

It was the afternoon already, and as Belle led Rumplestiltskin from the courtyard to the palace gardens, the guards let them pass, until king Midas spotted them and ran straight to Rumplestiltskin, embracing him tightly and emotionally.

Rumplestiltskin didn’t seem too pleased with this, but played along, patting the man’s back while Belle smiled.

“Rumplestiltskin, you’re saved! Oh this is amazing! But what of the witch?” King Midas asked.

“She’s dead,” Belle assured him. “She won’t be around to torture your son any longer.”

She was rather surprised that when she had first heard of her mission, she had been sent to look for Rapunzel – his daughter – but once Rumplestiltskin had arrived, the story had changed, and now it was indeed a son that King Midas had missed all along.

“This is amazing. Thank you, Belle. Your bravery will be shared with the world – everyone will hear tales of how you rescued my son, but first you must tell me.”

“Father,” Rumplestiltskin interrupted the eager king. “Perhaps you should allow us to rest first? We’ve had a long journey and are rather exhausted.”

“Of course! Of course! I’ll have the servants prepare your rooms and draw up some baths. Tonight, we feast!”

+++

Their baths and bedrooms provided enough comfort for them to rest properly, and by the time the feast started, they were well-rested once more and eager to tell the King the story he longed to hear.

As Rumplestiltskin told the story from his perspective, he finished at the end with “And they lived happily ever after…” but even then nothing happened.

Belle seemed slightly worried, and so was Rumplestiltskin.

“We have not discussed your reward,” King Midas told Belle. “Name what you want. Anything – and you shall have it.”

What Belle wanted most of all was to return to her own world, but king Midas could not provide that. So instead, she kept quiet for a long while, thinking about it.

“I wish to marry your son,” she suddenly said, and Rumplestiltskin nearly spat out his drink at the words.

But looking at her with wide eyes, he soon realized why she had chosen that reward. It would ensure they would stay together for a while longer – and perhaps a marriage would be the physical manifestation of their happy ending – perhaps it would remove this curse once and for all.

The King happily agreed to her request, and for that they were both relieved, and preparations were made to wed them as soon as possible.

They didn’t discuss it. This wasn’t a real marriage, after all, just something to break the curse. The other didn’t need to know that true affection had grown between them, or that they were looking forward to their second kiss already.

To Belle, the experience of being wed was rather special. She realized that the odds of her truly marrying anyone as long as she remained Rumplestiltskin’s caretaker were very small, and so she enjoyed every bit of this new experience. She loved trying on the new dresses, getting her hair fixed by the servants, the way in which everyone spoke in hushed voices around her, excited for her future.

The day of their wedding it took a long while before she finally saw Rumplestiltskin, standing in front of the priest as he waited for her, his hair a little shorter again, not as messily cut by her sword as it had been before, and he looked truly beautiful in his brown leather outfit.

During the ceremony itself, they did look at one another, and they both tried to remind themselves that it wasn’t real, that it was just an act, but still they spotted some happiness in the other’s eyes every now and then – a happiness that was both assuring and exciting.

A knot was tied around their wrists, and not allowed to come off until the day was over, and so while they sat down for the feast, it was rather amusing to realize that they couldn’t use one hand without dragging the other along. It was clumsy to eat this way, and the only time that it didn’t disturb them was while they were dancing, something that they discovered they both enjoyed.

Rumplestiltskin was better at it than Belle would have figured, and he quite literally swept her off her feet several times as he whirled her around. For a few hours, they were even able to forget they were trapped in a curse, since they were having so much fun, but as they headed to Rumplestiltskin’s bedroom in the evening, their hearts grew heavy again.

This curse – if that was what it was – still wasn’t broken, and as they untied the knot that kept their hands together, they both didn’t look at one another for a long while.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Rumplestiltskin assured her. “I mean, marriage-wise.”

“Sex, you mean?” she asked bluntly, and she noticed how he startled at those words.

“Yes.”

She hesitated as she looked around his room, rubbing her arms.

“Maybe it will be what will break the curse?” she said softly. “Maybe it will be the promise of our happily ever after?”

As he sat down on the bed, he sighed deeply.

“Sex is just sex, Belle. I know there’s a lot written about virginity and purity in a variety of tomes, but even from a magical point of view, it’s about pureness of heart and soul, not about pureness of your lower regions.”

As Belle sat down on the bed besides him, she left plenty of room between them.

“If it’s just sex, and if it’s not as important if you make it sound, then why isn’t it worth a try?”

He startled now, looking at her as though she had gone insane, but she just smiled warmly as she looked back at him.

“I’m not afraid of sleeping with you. Nor am I disgusted or anything else that would make you hesitate. Let’s just do it. If it breaks the curse, good. If not, we’ll have had sex.”

He gulped, and Belle saw it. It wasn’t like she wasn’t nervous about the suggestion, but she’d been able to hide it pretty well. He, on the other hand, seemed to be drowning in his nerves, and though he nodded, she feared for a moment that he was more terrified of her than the other way around.

He didn’t even speak as he started to undress, and realizing that he had not said no to her suggestion, she started to undress as well, untying her corset as quickly as she could, and crawling underneath the sheets the moment she was naked, realizing that he’d crawled underneath it a few moments earlier, and that he had been watching her with a very dry mouth.

Once they were both underneath the sheets, she was the first to move over to him, and though he opened his eyes for her, he seemed hesitant as she kissed his lips again, his eyes still open as he looked at her.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered as she noticed this. “Don’t you want this?”

“I’m just surprised that you would want this,” he whispered back.

“Don’t be,” she said with a wide smile. “I don’t think you realize how handsome I find you. Now are you going to kiss me back or just lie here in confusion?”

She winked teasingly, and at that he relaxed, wrapping his arms around her bare back.

“Let’s do this,” he said slowly, gaining confidence. “Let’s find ourselves a happy ending this night, shall we?”

She chuckled, noticing how playful his gaze was before he flipped her underneath him and started kissing her neck. She could only moan in agreement to what he was doing, thrilled by the feeling of his hands on her back and in her side, and even more thrilled by the sensation of his length between her legs, already hard enough to enter her.

They didn’t rush it though, but instead kissed and touched for many hours, trying to make the other moan in longing before they finally joined each other in a true union, looking into each other’s eyes in the dim candlelight while they made slow but unquestionable love to one another.

Belle would not have believed Rumplestiltskin could be such a gentle lover, but he was, making her come several times before he eventually gave into his own desires and spilled his seeds deep within her, crashing on top of her when he was done, completely spent.

“I forgot human stamina was this weak,” he muttered as he rolled off of her, by means of an apology for not lasting longer, but she wasn’t about to complain.

“I’m human too,” she reminded him sweetly. “Trust me, this was perfect.”

He offered her a half-smile. “Yeah?”

She nodded with a smile of her own. “Yeah.” Though she didn’t want it to end just yet, she suddenly said: “And they lived happily ever after…”

But nothing happened, and at this they both let out a relieved sigh at the same time, realizing this of the other, Belle suddenly said: “We should try again tomorrow.”

He nodded, knowing she wasn’t just talking about their mantra, but about the sex.

“Definitely. Could break any day now.”

“Any day,” she agreed, hoping they had a while longer to explore this new bond between them.

+++

And so days turned to weeks, and weeks to months, and months to years.

They were growing older – both of them – and though they often said “And they lived happily ever after…”, the times between the moments they said that were getting longer.

It wasn’t just sexual attraction between them – it had certainly developed into a much deeper love, one that they had at first tried to hide from one another, but which they now no longer denied.

They became rulers of this peaceful make-belief kingdom, where nothing exciting ever happened – and they were fine with that. There were hardly any meetings to be had, and in their free time they were pampered by the servants, and by each other.

By the time they grew very old, they were starting to realize that “And they lived happily ever after” wasn’t a spell, it was what they had to do – and it was what they were doing.

Rumplestiltskin, being the older of the two, died peacefully in his sleep after they had spent over forty years with one another in this dream world, and Belle only remembered falling asleep by his side, the both of them very gray and old, yet when she woke, she wasn’t in their royal bed – she was on the floor in his study, her hands so much younger than before, her hair brown again, and Rumplestiltskin by her side looking like the imp that had captured her.

“Rumplestiltskin!” she immediately said, rushing to his side immediately, her hands on his chest while he woke, and as he opened his eyes and looked at her, he was disoriented for a few moments.

When she hugged him, he could not help but hug her back, the gesture something that had grown so familiar in their fairy tale world, and as they let go, they both got up from the floor, and Rumplestiltskin immediately closed the book, disoriented and hesitant as he looked at the cover underneath his fingertips.

“We should do that again,” Belle said playfully, linking her arms with his. “But next time, you go in first. I wanna be Rapunzel.”

As he looked to his side, he saw how sincere she was, how thrilled she was at the prospect of living such a life again, and he gulped heavily.

Noticing his hesitation, her gaze softened. “No? Just this life then? You and I, living here in the Dark Castle?” She smiled hopefully. “It can be just as beautiful.”

As she touched his scaly cheek, he shuddered, unable to believe that she still looked at him with the same loving eyes.

“It wasn’t real,” he whispered to her.

“My feelings were,” she insisted softly. “They still are. I love  you, Rumplestiltskin.”

As she stood on her tiptoes to press her lips to his, he suddenly moved his hand beside her head and snapped his fingers, and as she lost consciousness and fell, he quickly picked her up before he lay her down on the floor again.

Snapping his fingers again, she awoke with a loud gasp, as though she had just resurfaced from a deep dive in the ocean.

Now she was the one to look completely disoriented.

“Rumplestiltskin?” she looked at him in confusion. “What happened?”

He knelt by her side, his gaze strict and his voice high and impish. “Why! You got trapped in a Fairy Tale, can’t you remember?”

As she shook her head, she just looked at him in confusion.

“Didn’t I tell you not to get into my cupboard? You opened the book of Rapunzel and got stuck in there! I had to use very difficult magic to get you out of there! You don’t remember?”

She shook her head again, still looking confused.

“I can remember coming into this room, but nothing more than that,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “When was that? I feel so hungry.”

“Must have been well over a day ago!” Rumplestiltskin said, not sure if it had been one or two days.

He offered her his hands and pulled her up from the floor, and she seemed a little dizzy.

“I’ll get you something to eat, and you’re to stay out of my cupboard from now on, understood?”

As she nodded, she looked worried about haven broken one of his rules, and he could not stand the sight of her looking so worried.

Summoning her favorite food to her, she looked up in surprise.

“Salmon!” She smiled. “That’s my favorite.”

He knew. After spending forty years with her in a fake universe, he knew everything there was to know about her. But she never had to know that.

“Lucky guess,” he muttered, turning his back to her. “Now eat up! You have an entire castle to clean!”

She smiled, glad he wasn’t too upset, and quickly ate her plate empty before she thanked him and headed out of his room again.

He licked his lips as he watched her leave. It wasn’t like he hadn’t enjoyed his time with her – quite the opposite. But he knew that he had to find Baelfire, and he knew that his maid would only be a weakness to his villains, and a weakness to his own heart. He had to try and forget her, if he would ever hope to be reunited with his son. There was another curse coming, and it would be hard if he had to fight for yet another soul when it came.