Beautiful Lily

A Cold Front

Belle had packed as much as she could, filling the contents of their suitcases with as many warm articles of clothing as possible; or as many as she could find inside their closet and drawers. There wasn't much. It was strange for her imagining him in an outfit other than an Armani suit or something involving crocodile skin, however, some of those warmer clothes did exist for him and she folded them neatly into his suitcase. Somewhere in the distance she heard a soft chirping. At first she thought it was a bird, but it sounded more electronic. Her phone! She ran downstairs towards the sound, straining her ears for it. Her phone gave another 'chirp' confirming its location and she found it wedged in a couch cushion which had fallen out of her purse. The Kriss dagger had propped open her bag, allowing the contents inside to spill out onto the couch. She looked at the dagger in disgust and she felt foolish to have "accidentally" left it exposed like that. She couldn't believe she had just left her bag here, unattended, exposed to anyone who dared peek inside their home. Of course, she was sure that he had placed heavy protective spells and charms on their home to prevent that very sort of thing from happening, but still the disgust she had wasn't for the dagger, it was for herself. While she was distracted with getting ready for their wedding, she completely forgot the safety of the dagger. She should have brought it with her, even to her wedding. It was at that moment that she decided to just bring her purse wherever she goes. It made her even more determined.

She opened her phone, which silenced the constant chirping, to discover four missed calls. Two missed calls from Emma, one from Leroy, and the other from Ruby. She was about to hit the playback button to her voicemail box when she heard a strange, muffled cry coming from the basement. Curious, she tossed the phone back into her purse containing the dagger, grabbing it and its contents and the thickest jacket she could find in the house and headed out the front door. She wasn't about to make the same mistake twice leaving the dagger behind.

Belle had only glimpsed into the basement when she caught Rumple practicing magic that one time in the middle of the night, but she had never physically been down there. There was no need to. The basement contained whatever work he brought home, and that included dark magic. She wasn't about to touch or clean his workplace unless he consented or was there to tell her what was safe to touch. Since he constantly worked with dangerous materials, she concluded that it was all dangerous and it was simply safer for her if the basement's contents were left untouched. Until now.

Belle peered through the small basement window like she did before, and saw... a young woman! "Elsa! Help! Anybody!" A young woman with auburn hair looked around aimlessly in Gold's, confused and trapped. Belle ran to the outside door leading down to the basement and opened it. "Hello?"

"Elsa?"

"No. My name is Belle. How did you get down here?"

"My name is Anna. My sister must have said my name. She needs me. I was magically frozen by Rumplestitskin so that my sister and I could be reunited. She must be close by," said Anna looking around curiously. The temptation to touch all the foreign objects in the room was starting to become overwhelming. But before Anna could do any damage Belle pleaded, "Please don't touch anything down there, you might hurt yourself. Please come upstairs where it's safer and we can continue talking."

"Who are you? What am I doing here?" asked Anna walking up the stairs towards Belle and into the daylight, "The last thing I remember was making a deal with Rumplestiltskin at his castle to reunited me with my sister."

"I'm Mrs. Gold. I'm Rumplestiltskin's wife." Anna widened her eyes out of fear, doubting her decision to go with this stranger. Belle, noticing her reaction quickly responded, "But you've no reason to fear! He's different in this land. He's changed, and to what I imagine, he's changed a lot since the last time you've met him. I'm his caretaker."