Notes: I feel like these two would be best friends :P Short fic, three to four chapters- enjoy!

She wasn't sure if she was supposed to say anything, the first time she saw him. How did one exactly say anything about that sort of condition without hurting feelings, after all? It seemed the kind of thing that would breed conversations surrounding sore subjects, and if Belle was learning anything about this town now that she was a part of it, it was that sore subjects were something to be avoided by the majority of its population.

It had been an accident that she had ever seen him at all, really. Belle had been in the process of resorting a stack of biographies some of the children had used for a school report on "historical" figures, and had dropped a rather thick copy of Wilfred Von Beaumont's life, stubbing a toe and crying as sixty-four years of impressive war exploits hit a nerve or three. That had led to Belle limping (rather pathetically, but she wasn't in the mood to call it so) around the bookcase, leaning on a back wall that was hardly ever utilized, possibly because it revolved.

And revolving bookcases, Belle discovered, besides making a mess of perfectly arranged books, also lead to secret studies where secret wooden men were typing secret messages on an old typewriter….secretly. Falling through the bookshelf had led to Belle landing on the floor of said study, eyes widening as she looked up and met the eerie, lifeless stare of a large puppet.

Well, not quite a puppet. Puppets implied strings. This was a wooden man. There was a subtle difference there that she wasn't quite sure of, but didn't want to delve too deeply into all the same.

"I, um, I'm sorry-!" She started, not sure why she was apologizing to a wooden man for a variety of reasons. First of which, being that this was technically her library now and if a wooden man wanted to take up residency behind the 900s section then he was going to, at the very least, need a library card. Second being that wooden men were not typically prone to being offended as they were…inanimate.

So Belle was quite surprised when the wooden man blinked, his wooden eyelids closing over painted eyes like a heavy shutter.

"What are you doing back here?"

Whatever shock that Belle felt was instantly removed by the question. What was she doing back here? She wasn't the one lurking in the walls of a formerly abandoned library without permission. She had permission. Or, at least, Belle assumed it was permission. Something she should probably look into, as with all things concerning Rumplestiltskin, the assumed technicalities weren't going to do anyone favors in the long run.

"I'm the librarian." It seemed like an easy statement enough.

The wooden man tilted his head, "There's a librarian?"

Belle chose that moment to straighten up off the floor. "Yes. A good one." She bit on her lower lip, "At least, I think I make for a good one." A moment of thought, "People read the biographies now."

"Right." The wooden man continued to stare, though Belle highly doubted he could do much else.

Belle cleared her throat. There were a series of unending questions, but her curiosity was always better served one step at a time. "I don't mind if you live here, really. But you should fill out the necessary paperwork."

"…Paperwork."

Maybe he was a ventriloquist dummy of some sort? Belle nodded, squaring her shoulders and trying for her best professional librarian stance, "For the card."

The wooden man's fingers stopped their movement over the typewriter's keys. "I'm not checking out any books."

Belle gave a half smile, "All members of the library need a card. And if you're going to be living here, I imagine that makes you eligible for one."

"I'm not living here."

"Then what are you doing?"

The wooden man's wooden eyes drifted to the side for a moment. "…writing."

"Then you can write as a member of the library," Belle concluded, going back and pawing at the revolving bookshelf's wall. It had to open somewhere…

"The copy of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde," the wooden man offered.

She smiled gratefully, pulling the spine down towards her. The wall swung around. "Thank you. I'll drop off the forms before I leave, you can leave them on my desk once they're done."

"I still don't-"

"Thank you," Belle finished, stepping through the wall, the pain in her foot forgotten.

After the bookshelf swung back into place, Belle leaned against a more stationary alternative with a heavy sigh.

That had been…odd.

She looked at the several books that had flown off the shelves once the thing had started spinning, now all laying haphazardly on the floor.

And messy.

The second time she saw him took a few more days, but Belle was pleased to see that when she returned the following morning a stack of papers had been neatly typed out and placed on the circulation desk. An application for a library card. Curious, Belle read it over before she even finished unlocking the building.

Name: August W. Booth

Age: Well

Address: 920-940, Storybrooke Library

Phone Number: The collected works of Robert Louis Stevenson (located in the biography section, you might want to reorganize)

Favorite Books: Fiction

The wooden man was definitely a strange one. And she did not need to reorganize. Belle was no stranger to strange men, and there was enough here to laminate him a card. That had been a new process Belle had discovered during her time here- laminating. It was definitely interesting, and protected many a new library card from her spilled tea in the afternoons.

Belle finished the card, placed it in the middle of a copy of Treasure Island, and left it on the floor in front of the bookcase. It was a little childish of her, but she smiled like an idiot when the book had disappeared the next morning.

The morning after that, a sole sheet of paper stating "Thanks for the card. And for forcing me to get one" in the stark, neat font of a typewriter was lying in the same spot.

Belle smiled, pulling out a spine, "You're welcome," she said to the thin gap in the wall.

After that, things progressed as they normally did. Belle busied herself with cleaning the shelves on Mondays, cataloguing the books on Tuesdays, and instituting story time for the children of Storybrooke on Wednesdays. On Thursdays, she had lunch dates- and so far, only lunch dates because she wasn't ready for dinner dates and he was definitely not ready for after dinner dates – with Rumpelstiltskin. Sometimes he would accompany her to the library afterwards. Fridays were spent as time to herself, the library usually quiet and still enough for her to get properly lost in a book that Ruby had borrowed her from her collection of "Mysteries and just mysteries". The irony that she was reading a borrowed book in a library did not escape her.

That Friday, the first one since she discovered that she was not alone in the library because a wooden man was living there, she decided that maybe this Friday shouldn't be spent by herself. She was halfway in between the heroine solving a train murder and running into the arms of her co-inspector when Belle heard the distinct tapping of fingers on…Rumpelstiltskin had called them keys. It wasn't an overpowering sound, and it didn't distract her from her book, but it did foster that infernal curiosity of hers.

Belle delicately placed a bookmark in her novel, setting it down on the desk.

Maybe wooden men liked tea? Dark ones certainly did. And dwarves. And werewolves. And she was sure her father, were she still on speaking terms with him, would have been absolutely scandalized at the odd assortment of company that she was starting to keep.

Clearing her throat, she walked slowly to her biography shelf. She noticed with no small amount of amusement that the shelf had a thin, wooden bar added to it that kept the books in place unless it was lifted up. A new addition. Another new addition, anyways.

Belle did the only thing she could think to do.

She knocked.

Lifting back a spine of the book, Belle peeked in, "Hello?"

She saw a solitary candle, a shadowed figure next to it. The key-tapping stopped.

Feeling a little more brave and a little less awkward, Belle tried again, "Just seeing how my only tenant was doing…"

"He's fine." The voice was muffled, but clear.

"Would he…does he like company?" Belle grinned, "Or like being referred to in the first person?"

"First person wouldn't be bad," she heard the heavy sound of his footsteps as he walked over to the books, and Belle took a step backwards as Dr Jekyll was pulled towards the other side of the shelf. The bookcase swerved around, and, feeling more than her share of forward, Belle took a step inside.

The lone work table now had some company. There was a small bed pressed flush against the wall, and a variety of bandanas and leather jackets strewn about. Belle vaguely wondered why a man who never left the biography section would be worried about matching outfits, but decided to credit it to a personality quirk. The typewriter was perched on a small wooden table, a small wooden chair pulled up next to it.

Where there stood the wooden man. August. Belle reminded herself.

"It looks cozy," she offered, giving what she hoped was a friendly smile.

August didn't smile, but the knot of what Belle suspected was cedar by the corner of his mouth rose slightly, "I hope I don't need a card for the bed, too."

Belle shrugged, "Possibly. But since I'm new at this, maybe this time I'll let it slide."

Both knots rose. There was a smile.

"I was expecting more of a…" August shrugged, his wooden shoulders creaking with the motion. Belle absently wondered if she should bring in some furniture oil for him. "Reaction."

Belle, seeing that August wasn't moving from his table, went and sat on his bed, "What sort of reaction?" She hadn't been aware that she had given no reaction, after all.

"Normally people don't react so calmly to…" he made a gesture with his hands that went from his shoulder to stomach, "All this."

She chuckled, "I guess you should know that I've been called a strange girl then." Belle paused, wondering how far politeness was supposed to go in this sort of situation, "Is that why you're back here? Have people been cruel to you?" The thought made her frown.

August shook his head, "No. I expect there's others here that people would rather be cruel to," he walked with a heavy gait back to his work desk, taking a seat behind his typewriter.

Belle tilted her head, "Then do you have nowhere else to go?"

"No."

"Any family?"

"Yes."

Her nose wrinkled, as she grew utterly confused, "Friends?"

"One or two."

Belle bit her lip. She wasn't sure how to ask this, so… "Then why are you living behind the biography section?"

August stared at her, something that Belle discovered was distinctly unnerving with wooden, painted eyes, "I told you, I'm not living here."

"You have a bed." Beds implied a living space, after all. So did not leaving a place for a week.

"I'm writing," he clarified.

Belle looked at the papers again. They were all blank. There was a small mountain of wadded up papers in the corner.

"Looks like it's going well."

August sighed. "Writer's block."

Belle tilted her head, "I hear going outside helps with that."

The wooden man looked down, "I can't go outside."

"Why?"

He looked, again, straight at her. And Belle wondered what shade of blue his eyes would be if perhaps they weren't made of cedar or pine or oak.

"…maybe I am hiding," he conceded, then amended, "While I write."

Belle felt maybe something close to the sting of sympathy, "Any particular reason?"

"I can think of a few."

Silence stretched as Belle waited for an elaboration. It didn't come. She smoothed her skirt out. And still silence.

"Were you…" She paused. "Were you always expecting a reaction?"

Something that looked very real, very human flooded his eyes, and August turned down to his typewriter again, "Not for the same reasons, no."

So he was cursed then. Or something very similar to it. And now he was writing something in the library where he perhaps didn't live but definitely did hide in.

He started to type. Belle watched his wooden hands clack down on each key. "What- what are you writing?"

He looked up at her.

"A story."

At first she thought him being purposefully rude, but then Belle saw the humor dart across his expression. "Well, that's unexpected," she leaned forward in curiosity, "What sort of story?"

August blinked, again his eyelids reminded Belle of heavy shutters, "I'm still working on that."

"Hm," Belle mused, "I'm something of an expert on stories. Perhaps I can help?"

"Are you always so…?" August trailed off, unsure of what to say after that.

Belle just laughed, a warm sound that filled the very dark and lonely room, "Yes. Absolutely." First questions first, "Do you have any characters?"

The wooden man made a big sigh, something that she thought must be an affection, seeing as so far the wooden man hadn't a need for food or drink, so breathing was probably something unnecessary as well, "Just the one."

"What are they like?"

"He's…" And again, Belle saw that strange, human emotion cross the face of the wooden man, "He's a carpenter."

And Belle looked at the wooden man, really looked at him. His fingers were perfectly shaped, the joints of the wood sanded evenly. The texture of his hair and his stubble was whittled with breathtaking realism, and were he just wooden and not a wooden man, Belle would know he was something that had been crafted with care. Her mind also drifted to the clever bar that now rested on the revolving bookcase, the one that held all the books in when it spun.

Belle smiled, "Why don't I grab us some tea, and you can tell me about him? Maybe then we can figure out the story that you want to tell."

"I don't…" August paused. "I don't drink tea."

Belle blanched, "I'm sorry, that was rude of me to assume-"

The wooden man laughed, "No, I mean. I prefer coffee."

She froze, "Oh." And then sighed, shaking her head, "That was rude of me to assume I was assuming then. How do you like it?"

"Black."

"Making it easy for me," she said, standing up and walking towards the bookshelf. Her hand was grasping Dr Jekyll when the wooden man spoke again.

"Thank you. For…the coffee. And helping with the story."

Belle paused, turning around, "Thank you for building something that would keep the books in place. I can't imagine why people would voluntarily want spinning shelving."

August tilted his head, "You really are a funny girl."

"Yes," she agreed, easily enough as she pulled down the spine, "A funny girl whose name is Belle."

"Belle," August repeated slowly, as if he had heard it before but couldn't place it.

"That's right." She paused before she made to leave and get their drinks, "It's nice to actually meet you, August."

"I hope so," was all he offered as Belle stepped out of the space before the wall.

"I guess we'll both find out. Now keep thinking about your carpenter character and I'll be right back with the tea and coffee. I suspect we'll get at least an outline done before the afternoon's over, or I'm not a very good librarian."

Belle vaguely registered the look of disbelief on August's face as the shelves swung closed. She grinned to herself, the sound of her heels echoing in the quiet area of the library, as her mind drifted to things like tropes, idioms, and plot. And how it came to be that a wooden man's story was about a carpenter.

And so it was, for the next few weeks, that every Friday Belle no longer had a day to herself but a day devoted to figuring out the story of the wooden man. Usually over scones and hot, caffeinated drinks.