#time's curse | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eirian-houpe · 1 year

Text

Time’s Curse - Chapter 4

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold

Additional Tags: AU, Original Character(s), Non Storybrooke, London, The Enchanted Forest (Once Upon a Time), Angst, Pining, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Murder, will add others as necessary

Summary: Never fall in love - such is the admonition given to Rumplestiltskin. Blue sees fit to interfere with his plan to reach a world without magic by sending him there herself so that he can pursue his quest to find his son, but he is not alone in this world without magic, nor does it appear that he is entirely free to live his life as he would wish. In the course of his seemingly fruitless search for Baelfire, Rumplestiltskin takes a job as a history teacher at an exclusive private school, and there meets Isabelle - the French teacher. All of a sudden that interdiction against falling in love seems to be really important.

Read previous chapters on AO3

Chapter 4 - An Ordinary Life

Transitions were always hard, new lives harder. It wouldn’t be the first time of course, that Rumplestiltskin had changed from one identity to another, but for some reason, trying to be ‘normal’ was proving to be a challenge. It seemed the past was always trying to pull him back.

The head teacher’s office was such a melting pot of Clorox, dark brew coffee, and cheap air freshener to disguise the mingled scents of adolescents or sickness - probably both - that it propelled him instantly back to the incident with the doctor that he had only just days before been discussing with Cambridge. There was even a black and white print poster of famous people throughout history, most of whom did not even look like themselves, with a blank space in the corner next to the question, “You?”

The head teacher returned to the room, and apologized for having had to deal with a discipline issue, and to thank him for waiting. A woman clearly close to retirement; the lines of weariness clear on her face.

“My pleasure,” he answered quietly.

“So… Mister Gold - Sheridan…” she smiled at him, and fixed her graying hair back behind her ears. She was clearly flustered, So he sat and waited for her to regain her composure. He wanted this to go well, after all.

“Been at this school for thirty years now,” she volunteered. “The last ten as the head teacher, and so much has changed. Depressing really - I feel so old.”

Rumplestiltskin shook his head. If only she knew about old; feeling old. The march of centuries weighed heavily on him at that moment. To distract himself as much as to compliment his prospective employer, he said, “You don’t look it.”

“You’re too kind,” she said, but he knew he had reached her with that. “Oh, to be as young as you.”

Gold chuckled. “Hardly,” he said. “Fifty two isn’t young, Miss Evers.”

“Well, you look good for it, Sheridan.”

“Dan is fine,” he told her, suddenly feeling like Sheridan was such a mouthful, and at that moment, sitting in a routine job interview, for a normal job, he was enjoying feeling ordinary; inconspicuous.

Far from inconspicuous was the sudden noise coming from beyond the window behind the head teacher, and he looked that way to see a handful of rambunctious students in untidy uniforms following a woman not much taller than they. She wore a plaid green plaid skirt with cream colored, woolen tights beneath; a grass green blouse and a dark blue, almost black cardigan over it all. Her chestnut hair was piled atop her head, and lit almost aflame by the sun that bathed the seemingly impromptu educational party.

For many long moments he sat, as if mesmerized, unable to look away, finding himself warmed by the beauty that graced her as she laughed at something one of the students said.

Miss Evers turn to glance in the same direction, a knowing smile drawing a blush to his face as he said, “Ah, that’s Isabelle, our librarian, and French teacher. Unique among our staff and the students adore her.” He thought, and tried not to remark that he doubted they were the only ones, which only served to deepen his blush. “She always seems to prefer al fresco education - rain or shine. They really engage.”

“It seems like you all do wonderful things here,” he said, pointedly trying to draw the attention away from his obvious admiration for the librarian turned teacher.

“We do our best, Dan,” Evers said, “but somehow we feel like we’re pushing that boulder up the ever present mountain of inner city disadvantage.” She sighed. “That’s the only thing that worries me, I have to be honest.” At his puzzled expression she added, “About your application.”

“Ah,” he said, feeling suddenly crestfallen, his stomach knotting in fading hope.

“Don’t get me wrong, Mister Gold,” her switch back to a more formal address did not fill him with confidence. “I heard from all your references and I can’t fault them. They’re impeccable.” He sighed with relief. At least Cambridge had done right by him in that regard. He’d been highly worried that she wouldn’t. “But… well - this is the inner city, and not an affluent comprehensive out in the suburbs.”

“Pardon me saying,” he interrupted, “but kids are kids.”

She nodded agreement, “And our kids, as you’ve seen,” she gestured through the window once more where the teacher and her class seemed intent on studying something low on the ground. He quickly looked away again. It wasn’t seemly for him to suddenly be thinking about the alluring curve of the diminutive educator, “our kids are great, but they don’t have those same privileges, and… well… I worry that you’ve led too sheltered a life to appreciate that.”

He let out a sudden burst of humorless laughter, adding, “You’d be surprised,” to the end of it, so as not to appear too manic; too desperate.

“Mister Gold–”

“Dan.”

“Dan,” she nodded then continued, “Most of our students struggle so much to understand the present… the world around them. Their reality. How do you hope to get them engaged with the past; to bring history to life.”

Rumplestiltskin smiled. She could have asked him no easier question. “Miss Evers,” he began, “I don’t need to bring history to life, because it already lives. It isn’t abstract tales of kings and queens, politics and wars. It’s you, and me… it’s those students and their families. Your shirt, for example. You could explain the whole history of colonialism, imperialism and slavery. The blood, sweat and tears that brought us to being able to walk into Marks and Spencers and pick out a shirt for work or school… it’s incredible when you think about it.”

She fiddled with the collar of her shirt, and he knew he’d made her uncomfortable and should have regretted it. He didn’t, just raised an eyebrow at her look of almost guilt. Evidently he’d hit the mark on where she shopped for her work clothing.

“My point is,” he continued, “It’s all around us - history. It’s a part of us, and teaching it is just about making people understand that. Everyone loves history!”

She raised an eyebrow. “You think?”

“I know.” he corrected. “It’s about making people see that who they are now, is because of what came before.” He gestured to the window, and asked, “May I?”

She nodded, a look of intrigue on her face, and as he stood to walk to the window, she too stood from her chair and followed him.

“That building over there,” he gestured to a drab, depressing looking building with tall towers on one corner and an even taller chimney. “It used to be a mental hospital - an asylum - did you know that?” She shook her head, “And that one,” he pointed not too far away from it, to a building he knew was on the next street over. “A slaughterhouse. Did you know a couple of hundred years ago they took the bones of those slaughtered animals, ground them up and made porcelain from them?” He didn’t wait for her to answer, just went on, “If we just turned back time and walked that street we would hear the lowing and the wailing of people and cattle each condemned to madness and death.”

“You certainly have a macabre way of putting things, Dan,” she murmured, and he worried he had traveled just a little too far to the darker side of history, but he shrugged.

“Not too far from here is where the suffragettes used to meet. A turning point, a real change for good.”

“I see from your resume that you knit,” she changed the subject.

“I do,” he said, “and weave, and even spin.”

“You put Helen to shame.”

“Helen?”

“Our domestic sciences teacher. Can’t even iron a shirt without putting more wrinkles in than she’s taking out, let alone make or sew clothing.”

“Well I love to,” he said, “especially to spin my own wool, but I find it hard to talk about. Hard to teach.”

“Unlike history?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Unlike history.”

“And the curriculum?” she said, “You’re up to date.”

He nodded. A lie. He had downloaded the document, but hadn’t ready it. The time at the computer had given him a headache enough without plowing his way through something he knew was going to be drier than dust.

“Well…” she seemed to have one more reservation. “For a history teacher, you’re a bit on the young side.”

He almost jumped back in surprise.

“I’m fifty two,” he reminded her. Going on several centuries - older than you can count. he didn’t say. “A rather old fifty two.”

She smiled then, and seemed to be considering something, considering him, and he did likewise, thinking of himself in terms of the lifetimes, the generations he had lived before the curse… after the curse in Cambridge’s thrall… each year lived, each moment past made it harder yet to live in the present, in the moment without darkening your soul. Eternity was little more than a progression of moments in the present, ignoring the ghosts of the past to try to live.

He gave himself a mental shake, the voices encroaching on him again - the murmuring, hissing annoyance of all those centuries past, all those lives, the voice of all the Dark Ones before him. It had been happening a lot of late, the more years he suffered since the curse, the more it seemed the past wanted to catch him up and crush him before he could reach his goal, before he could–

He had to concentrate, to hold on to the inconspicuous, to the ordinary - to normal.

Miss Evers shook her head and gave a little laugh, lost, it seemed, in past moments of her own. Was it as dangerous for her as for him?

“I have to say, Dan, I’m impressed with this application - very impressed.” She blushed then, and lowered her voice to make her confession, “I’ve been somewhat suspicious of why someone with your credentials would apply to our struggling little school. You’re frankly everything we’ve been looking for, and… well… even if you weren’t, you’d still be getting the job.”

“Oh?” he asked, his own suspicions somewhat stirred.

“No other applicants,” she explained with an apologetic smile.

He could not help but laugh at that. It was probably the most ordinary thing that could have happened to him in that moment, and his laughter was, apparently infectious, because Miss Evers apologetic smile, became first a nervous, and then more hearty laughter to join with his own.

The laughter soon died though as Evers shared, “There’s a plaque on my street, you know, right there on the corner below the street name.”

“There is?” he asked, though the prickling along his spine told him he shouldn’t.

She nodded, and returned to her desk to sit and take a sip on her coffee. He followed her lead, retaking his seat across the desk from her. “There were many plague victims who died on that street. One of the worst hit areas of the city apparently.”

Memory laced with pain assaulted him at the mention of plague. It surprised him with its vehemence because he had long since laid that memory, and his feelings for his former wife - indeed his former wife herself - to rest. Milah was nothing to him any more. Worse than nothing if he were honest. Forgotten remnants of a cuckolded past laced with hate.

“I see,” he said mildly, pushing the thought away, and forced a smile to his face. “You see, I told you that we are history.”

She chuckled again. “I have a feeling about you, Dan, and aren’t we supposed to listen to our instincts?”

“I suppose,” he agreed, though he wasn’t sure that he agreed. Feelings had never been helpful for the Dark One… had always led him astray, in fact - his own at least. Some of his best deals had been made when he was hard and cold, calculating. No room for feelings in that. No… feelings were the opposite of everything he stood for… Weren’t they?

He found his eyes flicked through the window again, to where Isabelle was moving among the students, speaking to each with little touches here and there that reminded him of someone. But no… that someone was dead. Regina had told him so.

He smiled and stood, “Well… if there’s nothing else, Miss Evers, I will… see you in August, I suppose.”

“Of course,” she, too, stood. “But August will be here before you know it, Dan. That’s another thing about getting older,” she added sagely. “Time goes by faster.”

“Or not,” he whispered, looking down at his hands, his normal hands. In that moment he missed the claws and scales.

Ever’s must not have heard, because she added, “And children.” The words jolted him from his growing self loathing.

“I beg your pardon?” he said.

“Children,” she repeated. “I have three. The oldest is in her twenties, and I promise you time has flown. Only yesterday she was playing dress-up with princess dresses, and next week she’s moving in with her girlfriend… a house of their own. Can you imagine?” She shook her head. “Do you have any?”

Another flash of memory and pain. He wanted to say no, but he couldn’t deny Baelfire. Wouldn’t.

“A son,” he told her. “But… I lost him.” He didn’t understand why he would tell that to a complete stranger, especially when he knew she would take it wrongly. “I mean… I don’t know where he is. We lost touch.”

He turned away from the awkward, sympathetic expression on her face. He couldn’t stand her pity. He’d find Bae… one way or another, and with or without Cambridge’s help. He heard Miss Evers shift in her seat, and glanced at her again to see she looked as if she were about to make some kind of comment. Instead she simply said, “See you soon, Mister Gold.”

With a nod, he stepped out beyond the threshold of her door, turned to look along the corridor to watch as two teenagers who had been standing, heads together, thick as thieves, looking at their phones, scurry away like cockroaches.

“Yes,” he said aloud but quietly. “See you soon.”

He left the school and prepared to walk the mile or so back to his modest home - a town house, two up two down - but he couldn’t help feeling as though he were walking with one foot still in the Enchanted Forest. He had not experienced that sense of dislocation in a long time. It bothered him. Everything like that had meaning.

He took the long way home, and it took him down by the wharf, another painful reminder of a past that seemed ever to be encroaching in the new, cursed life in which Cambridge had trapped him with her interference and her false promises. He should have crushed her like the bug she was centuries ago; when she first gave Baelfire the bean. His head began to ache - an understatement for it pounded like the painful beating of his heart. Another symptom of living in a world without magic… as if that magic were trying to reach across worlds and pull him back; enticing - daring him to try and reach for it, even knowing that he could not.

Wearied, dizzy, he reached out to try and support himself on something - anything - nearby. He leaned against the hood of a nearby car, only lightly, but the car alarm still sounded and to him was like the one of many wails of pain out of that long dead time in the Enchanted Forest, reaching through worlds and through time. He pushed away from the car, escaped from its insistent cacophony, only wishing he could walk away from the cacophony of pain-born memories just as easily.

#rumbelle #angst #romance #eventual smut #time's curse

3 notes · View notes