Part Two.

She took the stairs three at a time where she could. The tower was in the westernmost part of the castle and secluded there with only a few rooms that she wasn't allowed in to keep it company. She was only really allowed in the work tower if Rumplestiltskin was in there as well or had specifically instructed her to clean it. It was just as well most days. Some of his more creative experiments had a tendency to explode without warning and leave nasty goop caking the walls. She wouldn't be caught dead near it when it happened or she'd take the blame.

Belle would have given a great deal to hear him gripe and complain about what a terrible maid she'd turned out to be at that very moment. When he did so it always sounded as if he were filling the silence so that he wouldn't say something nice and give away the fact that he wasn't quite the monster that he wanted everyone to see him as. Not than anyone would ever mistake him for one now.

The young noblewoman tried to push the vision of the man that she was slowly coming to think of as a friend as well as her employer out of her mind. He'd been pale beneath his usual grey-gold scales and his veins stood out, glowing through his skin with an eerie sort of light that looked to be hurting him. His hair had slicked back with sweat, his features drawn, and the wound just below his sternum likely would have killed a mortal man. She couldn't imagine what could have done that to Rumplestiltskin, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to find out. She had thought he was immortal, but everything about his current state screamed that her time to find something to help him was very, very limited.

Belle hit the top step and crossed the small work tower quicker than she ever had before. The darkest corner was indeed the one tucked furthest away from the window. The shelves and cupboards there were shielded from any light by a lumbering set of shelves that she didn't think he actually used and she hopped over a chest to get to it. She had to squint in the darkness to see what she was doing, but finally she found the little key that she could turn to open it.

She looked right over it the potion the first time and she could only imagine that it had been spelled to remain uninteresting to someone that was not looking specifically for it. The container was narrow at the top, blossoming out at the bottom and the magic inside was darker than she had ever seen. How this was going to help him she couldn't be sure and she really didn't want to know what the price was to make something like this. The mist swirled angrily, slapping against the corked vial as if it were trying to get out. The closer she looked, the more she though that she could almost hear it whispering terrible things at her.

Destroyer. Traitor. Enemy. Distraction. Belle.

Blue eyes blinked owlishly at the container. She had heard her name. The mist had said her name. Whatever this potion was frightened her, but she couldn't let that stop her. Rumplestiltskin had indicated this was how he'd fight the poison that was tearing him apart and she needed to get it to him.

Belle held tight to the bottle in her hand as she ran down the stairs and back towards the great hall. She'd left the doors open wide and saw the injured man laid out on the floor still as death. He'd gone a little paler, if that were possible, with the exception of the increasingly unnerving glow that seemed trying to rip through him. The hand that she'd told him to hold the apron on was still resting against his stomach, but his fingers were loose against the fabric, and the other hand held a strange dagger that she'd never seen before.

She sank to his side, carefully setting the vial down and she reached down to his wrist to check for a pulse. Her fingers were trembling and she wasn't quite sure if she felt her own blood pounding through her veins or if it was his pulse, so she pulled the knife in his hand out gently to check for breath. That seemed to snap him awake and gold eyes flew open, wild and dangerous as he was suddenly coming at her. Belle was so surprised at the sudden movement that the dagger clattered to the floor and Rumplestiltskin doubled over, gasping and sputtering and coughing. Blood spilled to the floor from his lips and she felt the panic rising even as she tried to crush it. Fear wouldn't help him.

Rumplestiltskin was trembling like mad when she reached forward, her fingers touching the bare skin of his arm and she moved the other to his face. He turned wide, terrified eyes on her. "Don't touch it," he rasped and Belle found herself nodding.

"Okay."

He fell back, one hand clutching desperately at his midsection and the other trying to balance him. Belle immediately moved to steady him. "I brought the potion you said to bring," she said softly and saw his gaze flicker to it. "Is that the right one?"

"Yes."

"Can I do anything more?"

He bit his lip, looking very much like he were silently arguing with himself over something. Finally he grimaced. "Hold me steady?"

"Sure."

"And hand it to me."

Belle reached out for the vial and set it in his unsteady hand. He brought the dagger up with the other, leaning heavily back against her, and as he waved it over the bottle the cork disappeared. She watched curiously as the mist thickened, turning to a sort of paste before settling out into a thick liquid. Rumplestiltskin glanced back at her. "Make sure I drink it all or it's all been worthless," he said roughly and she nodded her understanding.

His hand was shaking as he raised the vial to his lips and she reached around him to hold it steadier, her smaller hand pressed against his scaly gold one and her thumb moved over the skin there in a soothing motion. She felt him tense against her as the liquid started down his throat and when his fingers tried to loosen around the glass she made sure he was holding tight until the last drop.

It started working - at least, she hoped that's what it was doing, but she couldn't be sure - about halfway through the liquid. That was when she had to work to make him swallow the rest. When it was finished, the strange glow that was work its way through his veins increased and his back arched, a strangled cry escaping him and Belle had to let go of his hand to make sure she had a hold on the rest of him. The glass thunked against the carpet and she had both arms around him to try to hold him steady. It quickly became apparent that there was no steadying him during this horrible process and she helped ease him down, his head in her lap so that he wouldn't crack his skull against the hard floor and add that to his list of injuries.

Rumplestiltskin was shaking violently now, screaming in a way that she wouldn't have thought he would have the strength to manage. Belle didn't know what to do so she settled on speaking lowly to him as she brushed his hair back and away from his face. This went on and on until she lost track of time. Finally and quite suddenly, he went quiet, slumping against her and going entirely limp.

Belle bit her lip, fingers finding what she was certain was a pulse this time and the glow seemed to have faded. Whatever he'd forced down his throat was fighting the poison that was in him and it seemed to be winning - or at least she hoped it was winning - but now she wasn't sure what to do. She had an unconscious Dark One in her lap and a lot of space between there and anywhere he might have been more comfortable. He likely had a room somewhere in the castle, but she'd be damned if she knew where it was, and the only other room she was certain was furnished with a bed that he could sleep the remaining sickness off was her own, and that was in the easternmost side of the castle.

"Rumplestiltskin?" she whispered, her voice larger than it should have been in the unnaturally quiet room. "Can you hear me?"

He didn't stir, but he was breathing and that was a start. Her fingers that had been buried in his hair moved down to his face and they traced the lines there, finding them much more human even if they hid behind a mask of a demon. Her vision blurred a little and she leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of his head that he never would have stood for if he were awake. "Please don't die."

She eased him to the floor and scurried off to make preparations. He kept a rug that she was certain that she'd seen fly a couple of times since she'd been there, and if she could get him onto it she could use that to get him to the room. She'd seen where he kept the bandages and healing ointments tucked away after she'd refused to let him heal a cut on her arm that she'd received in her first week with him. She'd been so convinced that the price might be going and rounding up a small child for his dinner or something along those lines she hadn't wanted him to come anywhere near it. Rumplestiltskin had fussed and complained the whole way through, but he'd given her the bandages and that had been that. Thinking back on it now she felt a little silly, but he certainly hadn't done anything at the time to make her believe he was anything less than the demon he pretended to be.

He was burning up by the time she got back downstairs to him with the rug in tow and finally got him onto it. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, or at least slowed, but he hadn't stirred and didn't the whole trip up the stairs into the easter wing. The carpet was very accommodating in the task she set before it and she had him tucked away in her bed as quickly as possible, pillows under his head in case another fit overcame him and he started thrashing around again.

Belle pulled a chair to the side of the bed and dipped a clean rag into the warm water on the nightstand, cleaning the dried blood away carefully. He was barefoot and shirtless, two things she'd never seen in her employer, and she wondered how a simple deal that he'd groused about all morning two days before had gone so terribly.

A moan escaped him as she started to clean the blood from the wound itself and she winced, trying very hard to ignore it so that she could do what needed to be done.

"Belle?"

She looked over at him, finding reptilian-like eyes staring drowsily back at her. "Hey. How are you feeling?"

"Terrible," he admitted softly, his voice low and almost human. There were no giggles or high pitched laughs tonight, only pain and what she hoped was healing.

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault."

"That doesn't mean I can't be sorry for you that you're in pain," she murmured, a touch of a smile perking her lips. He wasn't one that would readily accept help and she was certain that there were many stories behind the reason. There was only one that she was interested in though, and that was the one that she was sure she'd never hear if she didn't ask for it now. "What happened, Rumplestiltskin?"

His gaze shifted, looking anywhere but her eyes and his lips twitched downward in stubborn silence.

Belle sighed, taking a different approach. "Are we in danger here?"

"I don't think so."

That was certainly more honest than normal. Good. That meant that she might get something out him yet. "Did the potion work?"

"It is working." He sighed, settling back into the pillows. "It'll take some time."

Belle reached for the ointment meant to keep infection away and poured it on a cloth. "This may sting," she warned and pressed it down as gently as she could. Sting was an understatement and they both knew it, and she nearly lost him to unconsciousness again. He hung on though, and she offered him an apologetic look. "What could do this to someone like you?" she asked after a moment.

"Magic," he gasped, eyes closed tightly and his entire body rigid. "Light magic."

"But I thought light magic helped people?"

"Not when used against a dark creature such as myself."

Belle watched the way his face screwed up in pain and his hands nearly tore a hole in her bed sheets as his fingers wrapped in and around them, desperate to hold onto something in the pain. She carefully extended her own, touching the top of his hand, and that brought his attention around on her again. The questions could wait. He needed to be well more than she needed her curiosity quenched. "Is it safe for you to sleep?"

"Better, probably."

"Okay, then get some sleep. I'm not going anywhere."

He tilted his head just a little at her, but didn't argue. Instead his eyelids grew heavy and she watched him drift until they closed. Belle waited until she was certain that he was well and truly asleep before pulling the cloth carefully from the wound and finished the wrappings. When she'd washed the blood from her hands and tossed her soiled dress into the corner to be either cleaned with magic or burned - she thought she preferred burned at this point, as she never wanted to remember this night - she slipped a loose sleeping gown over her head and crawled in on the other side of the bed. Rumpelstiltskin was feverish and a little restless, but she took his hand beneath the covers and nestled in next to him with her forehead pressed against his bare shoulder. It was inappropriate, she knew, and he'd likely moan and complain about it for weeks, but for now it seemed to calm him and so she would stay. "Sleep well," she whispered into the darkness of the room and settled in to sleep.

Rumplestiltskin woke slowly the next morning, finding himself in an unfamiliar bed. Being in a bed at all was a rarity, as he hardly slept and when he did it was often in his work tower when he simply passed out over whatever project had kept his attention for a long enough length that his body gave up on him. He had a bed, certainly, though it remained mostly unused and had for quite some time. There were too many things to be done to lounge around all night. He had a curse to orchestrate, and not just any curse. The Curse to End All Curses. Sleep could usually wait.

He shifted, feeling that his body was slow to respond to his commands. Everything ached and he forced his mind into action to find the last thing he clearly remembered.

There'd been call from some poor, desperate soul that turned out not to be quite so desperate after all. He had been calling on behalf of Magnus, and suddenly Rumplestiltskin understood why he was still hurting so badly. Memories that he would have much rather had left elsewhere flooded through him and he cringed at the flashes of pain and utter misery that Magnus' spell had brought on him. Pure light magic did terrible things to the Dark One, and pure light magic of that power had nearly killed him. He'd escaped, though, and teleported himself away.

Golden eyes blinked, staring up. There was a thin material stretched out over the bed in which he lay. It was sheer, giving him a distorted view of the ornate ceiling. He was in his castle, there was no question about that, but he wasn't sure he remembered this room. Not that there weren't plenty of rooms that he'd never bothered to even step foot in, but this one he felt like he should.

Just the thought of shifting to sit up and look around made his body ache in protest. He felt his magic healing him, but a fraction of a memory flickered through his mind and he had told someone that it would take time. What would? He didn't like the fact that his mind seemed incapable of wrapping around the whole truth. He wanted to know what had happened - even if he didn't like it - so that he might avoid it in the future. He was too close to let something like this happen again. He didn't dare.

There was a soft sound in the bed next to him and Rumplestiltskin looked over, blinking in surprise. His little maid was curled up next to him, her small hand resting on his arm as if she were worried that he might disappear. Slowly, the rest of what had happened became clearer to him. Belle had saved his life. If she hadn't been there, if she hadn't willingly offered her help, he would have been dead. He pushed his curse's immediate grousing aside in lieu of a moment of gratitude. She never had to know.

He watched her for a moment. She had stirred, but hadn't woken. Instead, something had made her nestle just a little closer, her forehead touching his bare shoulder and she sighed in her sleep. He hadn't been giving her enough credit, though he'd never admit that out loud. When he'd told her to do something, she'd rushed to it and delivered with full results. This girl, this little maid that he'd bargained for on a whim, had somehow proven herself very loyal to him the night before, and he wasn't quite sure why she would bother, especially given what he'd asked her to do. Thinking back on it now, if he'd been in any less pain or in any clearer state of mind, he never would have asked her to take the vial from his shelves. The pure, utter darkness that swirled within that glass would have torn at most decent, mortal souls and caused more fear than should have allowed her to move forward with it. There were really only two explanations for the fact that she'd managed to get it down to him. The first was that she was secretly a dark and evil sorceress, but that was absurd enough to make him cough out a laugh. The second was that she really had wanted to save him and that she cared about him. That second option was more dangerous than the first, in his opinion. He'd thought people had cared before, but they always betrayed him in the end. He needed to be very careful moving forward and not let her get any closer than she already had.

Belle stirred again, and this time clear blue eyes fluttered open and came to focus on him. He froze where he was - which was looking straight at her - and blinked. A small smile crossed her pretty lips. "You're awake."

"It would appear I am, though I am curious what you are doing in the same bed."

"It's my bed," Belle answered practically. "I didn't know where yours was, and I was hardly going to leave you lying on the floor of the great hall all night." She reached forward without warning, her hand brushing the side of his face. "You still have a bit of a feaver. How are you feeling?"

Rumplestiltskin pulled in a deep breath, doing the first honest assessment of himself that he'd dared. His head ached terribly, but that would pass, and the stiff and achy feeling in his muscles likely came from the fever. He'd kicked the worse of it, he knew, but that didn't mean that he was one-hundred percent quite yet. "I'll live," he murmured after a moment.

"How much do you remember?"

He tilted his head back and forth against the pillow, receiving a satisfying pop that made her cringe. "Most of it, I believe. I… suppose I owe you something of a thank you."

"Something of," she teased and damn it all he was not blushing. That was the fever. It was still playing tricks with his mind.

"What was in the bottle that you had me fetch for you?"

Golden eyes watched her carefully. He'd never told a soul - not even Cora - that he'd managed to bottle a bit of his own curse. He'd hit the end of what books could teach him about it and the curse itself had little interest in its host knowing everything, especially when said host had made a deal with his young son once upon a long time ago that he would give up the Dark One's Curse as long as it did not cost him his life to do so. He'd continued his studies on his own and had given into some of his curse's darker tendencies to do it. He was a monster, he knew, and that made him wonder all the more why this brave little maid didn't listen to what her own natural instincts must have been screaming at her.

"Just a bit of very dark magic," he said after some thought.

"What about the knife?"

Panic immediately took hold and he sat straight up in the bed. His healing wounds pulled with the sudden movement, but he didn't care, and he turned a wild expression on her. "Where is it?"

Belle looked a little taken back. "I left it where you dropped it last night. It's downstairs. You said not to touch it again."

There was no good answer and he knew that. If she hadn't just saved his life he didn't think he would have been able to remind himself of it, but she had, so he did, and instead of loosing his rather formidable temper on her, he simply vanished from the bed and landed hard on his knees just outside the great hall. His magic tossed him down like it were angry at him for demanding this kind of effort so quickly after the ordeal he'd been through, but he didn't wait for the stinging that the landing caused to subside before he struggled to his feet - still bare and the marble of the castle floor was cold! - and stumbled to where the Kris Dagger still lay abandoned on the carpet inside the room itself. His breathing was ragged as he took it up, inspected it, and saw that it was no worse for wear. Of course it wasn't, but he'd never just left it sitting out before. He would have had to be a mad man to do so. His soul was tied to it and he'd be damned if he'd let someone control him like Zoso had.

"Rumplestiltskin?" a quiet voice called from the other side of the giant doors that were still open. He heard Belle's bare feet hitting the marble of the staircase as she descended and she peaked around the door, holding a shawl around her shoulders to battle the chill that her thin nightdress likely did nothing for. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes," he managed, the dagger vanishing from his hands and put safely back into the vault where no one but him could reach it. It was safe. He was safe. Magnus would not get it.

"I'm sorry, but should I have taken it upstairs? I wasn't sure if-"

"No. Never touch it."

She nodded, seeming to accept his answer and lack of further explanation. She crossed the space between them and he looked down, realizing that the only covering he had over his chest were the bandages that she had fastened in place. He had never been a good patient, even before his curse, and he couldn't imagine that he'd been any help at all last night. His hand went to the bandages and he felt a twinge from the wound not quite healed, causing him to look around at the stains he'd left on the carpet the night before. Belle followed his gaze, frowning at them and he felt a little sheepish. "I'll take care of them," he said quickly and found her clear eyes turned back on him. He swallowed, feeling uncomfortable. "Well, you'd get distracted by some book halfway through and it'd never get done," he snapped without any real hostility behind his voice.

Belle's lips quirked up a little at the edges. "Thank you."

He snorted, trying to keep himself detached, but it was becoming more difficult by the moment as she moved closer. Rumplestiltskin didn't know why she was until his knees suddenly gave out beneath him and he helped ease him down the the floor. "You should rest."

"Likely should," he agreed drowsily and he mentally kicked himself. Don't show her weakness, his curse growled. She'll use it to destroy you. Just like Cora. Just like Milah.

But she hadn't, and Rumplestiltskin couldn't forget that, nor could he completely ignore how comforting the arm that slipped behind his back to help steady him as he stood and they moved carefully towards and up the stairs. He was feverish and ill, and that would be his excuse. He didn't care for this woman - he most certainly didn't love her - and the feelings that stirred within his dark and scarred heart were only an illusion. They had to be, because he'd learned his lesson. He had risked loving one woman when he'd sworn he'd love no one else until he found his son and it had nearly destroyed him. He was no fool and he would not make the same mistake twice.

"You okay?" Belle's soft voice drifted into his ears and he realized they were standing next to the bed that they'd both slept in the night before. He nodded and she eased him down, carefully maneuvering him under the sheets and he felt himself sinking against the pillows.

"Stay?" The question left his lips without ever receiving permission to do so, and there was that smile of hers again.

Belle nodded. "I won't go anywhere," she promised and he closed his eyes, feeling himself drift off to sleep. He was safe, and for right now all of the questions and the things that could never be would have to be dealt with later. It was just the fever, after all, and so he could enjoy the little flicker of light - the kind that actually didn't burn him - that came with her smile as he drifted off to sleep.

End

Notes: On Monday I plan to start posting Burn the Worlds, which is the full length story that this one is the short prequel to. Lots of SwanFire to start out with, lots of Rumple and Bae father-son relationship, and eventually lots of Rumbelle. You know, the kind of thing I know all my readers hate :P

Another plot bunny snagged me this past week and I'm hoping to finish up that storyline too. It'll be a two or three shot, and if I do, I'll try to post the first part this afternoon. It's called 'Broken' and is dealing with the utter heartbreak after the Winter Finale.

Let me know how you liked this one! And if you haven't been over there yet, I also was putting up another short this week called Just Another Fairytale. :)