Painted in Flames

Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time. Story title from Snow Patrol's 'The Lightning Strike'.

There is a brooding heat pressing down on Storybrooke as Belle hurries towards Granny's. Dark clouds murmur above with the threat of a storm, and anticipation makes her skin prickle.

She refuses to see it as a sign that this date shall go the way of all the others. Belle loves storms. One of her fondest memories was to climb to the battlements of her father's keep and watch the summer storms blow in from the sea. First the great furnace wind, and then the lightning sharp as blades scrawling their strange sky-language across the darkness, the great roar of the thunder that shook Belle to her very core.

There she could yell for joy, spread her arms to the warm raindrops and care not for the state of her clothes or how a true lady should comport herself. Belle saw each storm as her private adventure, that sent her heart to pounding in her chest and never failed to make her laugh, wildly, without restraint.

A distant rumble brings a smile to her lips as Archie turns the corner in front of her, his spotted dog trotting beside him.

"Belle!" The cricket-turned-man exclaims with a delighted smile.

"I haven't seen you lately. How's the library going?"

She is on tip-toe with impatience, with that madcap, ravenous joy that wilder weather always wakes in her.

"Great! Really good. I should be ready to open soon. Rum helped me order - oh, so many books. Every morning I wake up and there's another box on the doorstep."

"Good, good, I'm glad. Um, are you heading home? There's a real beast...ah, there's a huge storm forecast for this evening. Almost a cyclone, really, off the coastline."

Belle laughs.

"No, I'm heading to Granny's actually. For a date."

Archie, a true gentleman, tries to offer Belle his umbrella, for even as they speak the wind is growing stronger, colder than the winds Belle remembers at home, but exhilarating all the same.

Belle assures him she's fine, even as the first fat drops of rain sting the pavement.

She ends up running as the clouds burst water upon her, laughing as she does so. She is certain that this is her night, their night, and nothing will ruin it. If the storm is anyone's sign, let it be hers.

She arrives drenched but deeply happy, and behind the windows of the diner there is a warm, golden glow. It is far too late to salvage her hair and makeup, and Belle turns her face up to the deep purple clouds for a moment. A bolt of lightning lashes the sky above, fierce and blinding so that her heart jolts with the suddenness and the brilliance of it, and she remembers how Rumplestiltskin's lips felt against her own, a lifetime ago. Is this how magic feels, she wonders, like a storm brewing in the cage of his ribs?

How would it be to carry such power with you every moment? Dangerous, she thinks, perhaps frightening, but intoxicating as well, and Belle pushes open the door.

When her eyes find his, he is already watching her, and there is a faint smile at the corner of his mouth, enough to send a bloom of warmth through Belle's chest.

Rumple looks her up and down as she approaches, and his soft smile turns sharp and amused the way she loves.

"Gods, love, did you walk here or swim?"

"A little of both." Belle admits, giddy with delight as she drops into the booth opposite him. He begins to shrug out of his suit jacket, but Belle entwines her fingers with his on his free hand.

"Don't worry, Rumple, I'm fine without it."

He relents, and raises an eyebrow.

"You look half-drowned."

"I love this kind of weather." Belle confesses, pushing back her wet and wildly curling hair.

"I know. I used to watch you hang out the windows you were supposed to be cleaning watching them come. I thought you might fall out one day."

"But you would have caught me, of course." She teases, and his eyes glint in response.

"I'm a busy man, Belle. No, I knew the worst that could happen was you flattening one of my rose bushes."

"Your rose bushes? The only reason you had any roses was because I took care of them."

"Hmmm. Well, they certainly didn't last long after you...left."

Rumplestiltskin looks away for a moment, his hair veiling his eyes in what Belle recognises as a defensive gesture. In turn, she takes his other hand and they sit together a moment. Her thoughts slide to Regina, unwillingly, and nausea twists at her gut, along with that terrible fear, a drop as though the land has turned to empty air under her feet.

When Belle has the courage to raise her eyes, Rumple kisses the pale cold skin of her hand, smoothing his thumb across it afterwards as though to wipe it away, or to bury it deep below her flesh. She hopes it is the latter. She wants a part of him in the delicate blue veins that hold her blood. She wants him to write his name on every one of her bones, that she might carry him always, and rid herself of the nagging fear that he might one day be gone as if he never were, and her in his place, with that terrible red grin, gloating that it was all a dream.

His eyes are much paler than they were, a trick of the light perhaps, and they seem to cover all the white as they once did, when he wore another skin. And his gaze burns inside her skull, as though the black images in her head were laid out for his perusal, and he saw each one as she did, immediate and agonising.

"Oh, Belle." He sighs, or growls, and the light above them flickers.

"She won't touch us again, I promise you."

Half the customers are watching them now, the Dark One's intensity crowding the room like the clouds crowing the sky outside, but Belle tightens her grip until it must be painful and nods, her throat too tight to speak.

The moment between them is shattered when Ruby places their burgers between them, the only one brave (or reckless) enough to pretend that Rumplestiltskin is still just a bitter pawnbroker in an expensive suit.

"Thanks, Red. It looks delicious." Belle tries for a smile, but it comes out wobbly and strange, and the wolf-girl's eyes dart between them, dark and calculating.

"You're welcome." She says finally, and stalks away. Had she been in wolf-form, her hackles would have been raised and her fur standing up.

They are only a few bites in, Rumple's eyes finally returning to their former state and Belle's heart no longer feeling as though it is lodged in her throat along with her burger, when there is a great mournful hum and the whole diner is plunged into darkness.

Outside, the lightning, bright-white and burning, fills up the sky, and the thunderclap makes their booth shake. There are some shocked cries from the rest of the customers. Someone accidentally drops a plate in the kitchen, and the splintering crash makes Rum wince.

"Power's out." Granny announces, lighting an old lantern she keeps on the counter.

"Kitchen's closed, folks."

Belle throws down her half-eaten burger, trying to hide her smile, and raises an eyebrow at her True Love, rippling shadows playing on his shoulder and face from the flickering flame.

"Truly, it seems we are cursed."

"Oh, I don't know about that." He replies, his slender fingers tearing at the bun on his plate.

"I rather call it a blessing, that we get to see each other so often."

He gives her a tentative smile, and she returns it.

There is another great stroke of lightning, and hail begins to bounce off the windows. The thunder is like a physical blow, shuddering in Belle's chest, and people begin to panic. One large hailstone shatters a window, and cold wind blasts into the diner. Granny curses as she shoves through the throng, pausing only to glare at Rumplestiltskin as he wipes his mouth with his napkin.

"Can't you do something about this?"

"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't. My lady loves storms."

Belle blushes and swats Rumple as Granny shakes her head and moves on.

"That was mean." She scolds. "But...could you do something about the storm? If you wanted?"

He blinks at her placidly as he stands.

"Of course. But I love them too."

Belle pulls on her coat, and accepts his gallantly extended arm.

"Why?"

Granny and Red are herding their patrons away from the windows, even as another hailstone breaks through in a chime of glass -"Just stay calm and keep away from the windows. You can stay here until it passes over. No, it's not a tornado, what good would calling the Sheriff do, you foolish man?"- and Belle and Rumplestiltskin are making their way through chunks of ice to get to the door.

Rumple steps out first, and his suit is drenched within moments. He tips his head back to the sky as fiery snakes singe the sky all around him, just as Belle did only an hour before, and he ignores the stares of the townspeople as he tells her,

"Because you did."

And it must be like his magic, it must, as Rumplestiltskin holds out his hand for her with his eyes like fire, and the great glorious chaos churning about him, and he burns still and calm in the middle of it all, and perhaps that is why Belle loves him, because he is like a storm himself, and she has been in love with storms for all her life.

Belle laughs, and takes his hand, and doesn't look back.

Author's Note: Written for the 2012 50 First Hamburger Dates fic exchange on Tumblr.

Concrit always appreciated,

Taluliaka.