[June 23rd] [Once Upon a Time] Alternate Endings

[insaneladybug.livejournal.com]

Title: Alternate Endings
Day/Theme: June 23rd - Sorrow is just all the rage nowadays.
Series: Once Upon a Time
Character/Pairing: Rumbelle
Rating: K/G

Takes place in my alternate 3B vignette series, and this one fully deconstructs "canon" from 3B onward, thanks to an idea from rose_of_pollux.


By Lucky_Ladybug

Rumpelstiltskin was puzzled when he couldn’t find Belle anywhere in the shop the next day. She had said she was coming over after work. Finally, determining that the library must be doing great business for a Saturday, he headed over himself.

There were some customers milling about, examining books or using the computerized card catalog, but Belle still wasn’t visible. When he asked, he was told that she had last been seen going into the back storage room. So he headed there, pushing the door open and staring at the old, metal shelves in the dimly lit space. “Belle?” he called.

“Rumpel . . .”

He snapped to attention, hurrying towards the direction of Belle’s voice. She sounded distressed, tortured, even. “Belle, what’s wrong?” Somewhere behind him he heard the door click shut, but he didn’t care. All the better if they were given privacy.

At last he saw her, sitting on an old chest at the back of the room. A strange, leather-bound book, similar in appearance to Henry’s, was open on her lap. She looked up at him, sheet-white. “I found this in this chest,” she said.

He regarded her, and it, blankly. “What is it?”

She flipped it shut so he could see the title: Once Upon a Time—Another Story. “It’s so strange, Rumpel,” she exclaimed. “It picks up after you killed Peter Pan and everyone else had to leave Storybrooke. It talks about someone named Zelena, who is apparently the Wicked Witch of the West, and how she had some sort of an unhealthy obsession with you. And . . .” She shuddered. “In this story, Neal and I did use the Dark One’s Vault. Or rather, he used it in spite of my misgivings about it. He . . . he died in your place and Zelena took you prisoner. . . .”

Now Rumpel paled as well. He sat next to Belle on the chest and reached for the book. “What else does it say?”

“Horrible things,” Belle said, shaking her head. “You were never the same after Neal’s death, and Zelena torturing and abusing you only compounded the problem. You became completely illogical. You gave me a fake Dagger, only I thought it was real, and you proposed to me with it. You started looking for some magical hat and you caused so much trouble that I finally found out about it and I took the real Dagger and . . . and banished you from Storybrooke.” She was shaking, badly affected by the book’s contents despite knowing they were not real. “How would something like this get here, Rumpel?! Who could have written it?!”

Rumpel set the book on his lap and turned the pages, staring in disbelief at the illustrations. “I honestly have no idea where it came from or who wrote it,” he said, looking and sounding haunted.

“And that’s definitely the truth?” Belle pressed. “You or I couldn’t have found a way to reset time so that all of these awful things didn’t happen?”

“If either of us did, I have no memory of it now.” Rumpel frowned, closing the book. “Was there anything else in the trunk?”

“Other old books,” Belle reported. “Mostly first editions of classics such as The Wizard of Oz and Frankenstein.”

“Well,” Rumpel said slowly, “the only explanation I have for this book is that someone had a very sick mind and hated us and Bae a great deal.” His eyes flashed. “It sounds like we are the ones who suffer the most in this tale. We never really catch a break.”

“But I just don’t understand who would hate us enough to write something like this,” Belle frowned. “Hook isn’t a writer.”

“In the end, it doesn’t really matter,” Rumpel replied. “After all, it’s not like we’re characters on a page who can be manipulated into behaving as the Story would wish us to. We are simply the real people on whom the classic fairy tales were based. People can write whatever stories about us that they wish, but it won’t change the facts.” He pushed himself off the trunk and Belle followed suit.

“So the book isn’t anything to worry about, then?” she demanded.

“I wouldn’t say so.” Rumpel opened the trunk and replaced the tome inside. “But let’s keep its existence just between us, shall we?”

“Shouldn’t Neal know about it?” Belle asked.

Rumpel paused. “I don’t think he would be very happy to know about it. He doesn’t even want anything to do with the Enchanted Forest or anything else strange. He would rather live in this modern world that doesn’t believe in magic. Of course, if you think he should know, Belle . . .”

“I think he has a right to, all things considered,” Belle said.

Rumpel sighed. “You’re probably right.” He closed the trunk, sealing it with a spell before straightening up. “By the way, neither you or he have talked about how you got back to Storybrooke after you were forced to leave.”

“Well . . .” Belle smiled a bit. “That was mostly his doing. He looked everywhere for a way back and finally went to the Blue Fairy for information. She admitted that there was one other way that didn’t involve doing what Regina did.”

“That’s typical,” Rumpel said in annoyance. “That she would keep the knowledge of that way from everyone, that is.”

Belle nodded. “Basically it involved each person pledging to come here, but only on the condition that they would give up all ties to their original land and fully become part of this world instead. In other words . . . we can never go back.”

Rumpel stared at her in surprise. “Everyone who came here was alright with such a deal?”

Belle smiled more. “Yes. Of course, it was bittersweet for some, but they still made the choice that they would rather live here than there. For Neal, it wasn’t a sacrifice at all.”

“And for you?” Rumpel searched her eyes.

“It wasn’t a sacrifice for me,” Belle said firmly. “I thought you were dead; it didn’t matter much to me where I lived. But when Neal wanted to come back here, I wanted to come with him.”

Rumpel smiled, drawing her closer to him. He knew she was telling the truth. “You know,” he mused as he kissed her, “I find something very disturbing about the fact that the Blue Fairy told about the Curse that Regina cast, but mentioned nothing about this other way to bridge the worlds. It would almost seem that she didn’t want passage to the Enchanted Forest to be blocked off forever, and that she preferred to allow someone to sacrifice the person they loved most.”

Belle looked troubled. “It does sound that way, doesn’t it. But do you really think she would feel like that?”

“I don’t trust her, let alone like her,” Rumpel said. “I really wouldn’t put anything past her.”

“And that book. Are you going to try to find out who might have written it, even if you don’t think we need to worry about it?”

“I certainly won’t ignore the authorship,” Rumpel replied. “Offhand, I’d say it was written by someone other than who wrote Henry’s book, but that both were published by the same company. The binding and illustrations look very similar in both volumes.”

“The difference is that the first volume has stories about things that really happened, but only in the Enchanted Forest,” Belle said. “The other book talks about both the Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke.” Worry flickered through her eyes. “I can see how the events in the Enchanted Forest could become legendary and form the basis of all the popular fairy tales, but who would know about Storybrooke enough to write about it?”

“It has to be someone in town,” Rumpel said. “August was the one who had a typewriter. If he were still himself, I would say it was him.”

Belle’s brow furrowed. “I still don’t know what I think of what happened to him,” she said. “It’s nice for Gepetto to have the chance to raise him again, but it seems like such an easy way out of his problems. Life isn’t that easy for most people; they have to work through their problems, not have them erased.”

“Well,” said Rumpel, “we can lay that one at the Blue Fairy’s feet as well.”

Belle nodded. “You know, something else that bothers me about that book,” she said as she linked arms with Rumpel and prepared to leave. “It was so focused on terrible things happening, often to us, but to others too. It seemed like there was barely any room for any kind of happy ending . . . or happy beginning, either way. Emma’s role was to bring back the happy endings. It sounds like in that author’s world, she didn’t succeed.”

“Can any one person bring back the happy endings, though?” Rumpel mused. “I say most people have to make their own, just the same as they have to work through their own problems. Perhaps what Emma restored was the chance for people to make their happy endings. Although actually, oddly enough, it seemed like some people found their happy endings before the Curse was lifted, such as Hansel and Gretel.”

“And Ruby was happier not remembering what she did to her beau,” Belle agreed. She sighed. “I suppose we haven’t had much chance for happiness ourselves since Greg and Tamara first appeared. Everything went out of control after that.”

“But we have the chance now,” Rumpel answered, turning to look at her in the dim light.

“Yes,” Belle said with a smile. “And we’re going to take it.”