HAPPY BIRTHDAY, hollymac_79 - Fic: You Drive, I'll Steer (One-s

[ultra_fic]

A/N: For my fabulous friend, hollymac_79, this story is my Birthday gift to you, mate! I really hope you like it :)
(and if anyone else wants to read it, thats cool too!) Shout out to the excellent beta of this fic, westwingwolf, who stepped in right when I needed her!

Title: You Drive, I'll Steer
Author: Ultra
Summary: Belle is freaked out by most modern appliances, but Rumpestiltskin has noticed that one advance in technology seems to interest her...
Timeline: an imagined Season 2
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: All recognisable characters belong to the creators of Once Upon A Time and/or Brother Grimm and/or Disney - basically, they don't belong to me!

When Belle walked back into Rumpelstiltskin’s life, he had been too overwhelmed by her presence to think about what would happen after. From the revelation of her being alive to a tearful expression of love when her memories returned, then onto the moment when he brought magic back into everyone’s lives. So much drama, so much going on, not once had the man they called Gold considered how his life would be when it was over.

They had settled into routine, odd as it was, operating much like any normal old marrieds might, minus certain activities they hadn’t yet dared to broach the subject of. His sweet Belle was still a maid as yet; their relationship whilst close and loving in general was undefined at best. She kept house because she wanted to, not because he demanded it. She said they must look after each other in this strange new world, and he could not argue with her, even if Rumpelstiltskin believed he needed little or no taking care of himself.

Though Belle suffered most at the hands of her nightmares, brought on as a result of her imprisonment, what was almost as frightening to her in the beginning was technology. Thirty years locked away meant she knew nothing of the modern world, nothing about Storybrooke at all. Belle had been given no name nor identity in the curse because Regina had hidden her away, pretending she did not exist. Her memories in that place, they were hazy and disjointed, and those returned to her were purely of the old world from which they had all come.

Two days after the curse broke, Rumpelstiltskin had gone running (or at least limping at a brisk speed) at the sound of a panicked scream in the kitchen, only to find his beloved facing the washing machine with a look of abject horror on her face. Backed up against a wall, frightened out of her wits, as the thing spun and shook, anyone else might have found the whole thing comical. Perhaps Rumpel would have too if she were anyone else, but as she was Belle, he only wished to comfort her.

“I don’t like all these machines,” she had lamented from the safety of his arms. “They beep and they rattle... They do things all on their own, like they don’t even need a person to operate them.”

Rumpelstiltskin did understand, of course he did. Microwaves and televisions, even electric lighting and vacuums cleaners, it was all so very far removed from their true time and place. Oil lamps and feather dusters were more Belle’s speed, and yet her curiosity and need to learn kept bringing her back to face her electrical and mechanical foes.

It was several weeks before his dearest love was comfortable enough to work in the kitchen without his being close by. Rumpelstiltskin was proud of her and helped her all he could to adjust to this new world. Still, he did allow himself a little amused smile when he heard her going in there, talking to herself.

“Do the brave thing,” she muttered. “It’s only a machine, you’re in control,” she told herself, repeating words he had said to her himself.

She overcame so much in the first month. There was no longer an appliance in the house she couldn’t handle, and keeping the place spotless was her biggest source of fun. Rumpelstilstskin wondered at her need to do such things when he assured her she didn’t have to. He could hire a cleaner, a housekeeper, she was so much more than that now. She was his love, his dearest Belle, but still she insisted she enjoyed being busy.

“You have your work, and I have mine,” she had smiled when she told him so.

She was happy, and that was all that mattered to Rumpelstiltskin. Forever and always, her true happiness would rank above all else in his world. This was how the trouble came to begin.

For all her fear of modern technology, there was one invention with which Belle was quite fascinated, nay, enamoured. Several days when Rumpelstiltskin returned from his shop or a trip into town in general, he would find Belle by the window, her nose practically to the glass. She was watching people, that was what he thought at first, getting to know them all over again in their different clothes and such. He realised soon after that was not the case at all when she began bringing up in conversation what she had really been staring at.

“It’s a funny little yellow thing,” she said of the Sheriff’s transport as they ate dinner. “I never saw anything like it. I think I prefer the dark colours, and the larger ones, like yours,” she went on.

Another night, conversation turned to horses and then once again onto more modern modes of transport.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she marvelled. “The way they move so fast, and all the controls! I had no idea the inventors could ever come up with such things.”

Rumpel nodded along and listened intently. Belle’s fascination with cars was odd to say the least, but he supposed nothing to worry about. There was a smile on her face from the first time he had offered her a ride in his own Cadillac, and no hint of fear as there had been with other machines she encountered.

“I wonder at your being so fond of cars, Belle,” he said later when they were sitting together in the living room. “So many other advances in technology seem to bother you.”

“Well, that’s simple,” she told him, prising her nose out of the book she had been reading. “The things in the kitchen, they just seemed to have minds of their own, at least until I got used to them,” she explained, putting the marker into her book and laying it down on the table by the newspaper he had just abandoned. “You control the car, and I trust you.”

Rumpelstiltskin smiled at that, not because he was amused this time, but just touched by her words. She trusted him; she loved him. Whilst the rest of the town would not give him an inch she would give him a mile, and he would never abuse that. Though all others had been double-crossed by the Dark One, she never had, never would.

A moment later, he shook off his daze of happy wonder and spoke again.

“Controlling a car is not so difficult, dear,” he told her easily. “Anyone can learn.”

The look in his eyes was familiar, a challenge presented that he didn’t have to speak. Belle opened her mouth to answer it but swiftly changed her mind. It was true, she could handle a vacuum and program the washing machine these days, but drive a car? The concept thrilled and petrified her in equal measure.

“You would teach me?” she asked, perhaps checking she had read him right, but he suspected more to buy time.

“If it would make you happy, Belle,” he assured her with a genuine smile. “After all, you wouldn’t be afraid to try, not one so brave as you,” he teased her.

“Do the brave thing, bravery will follow” she echoed words she had once said to him a lifetime ago, a scene she remembered as clearly as anything in this moment.

It had taken true bravery and sacrifice to offer herself to the monster Rumpelstiltskin had been rumoured to be. Leaning to drive a car, from what Belle understood, that was done by people as young as sixteen. All at once she was on her feet, headed for the door with a determined bounce in her step.

“I’ll be ready in moments!” she proclaimed as she went darting up the stairs.

Rumpelstiltskin only smiled wider.

* * * * *

It took all of ten minutes for Rumpelstiltskin to wonder if he had gone completely mad at the same moment he fell in love with Belle. He must be crazy to think teaching her to drive would be either easy or fun. In reality, it was all he could do to keep his temper in check as he went over and over his instructions which she failed to follow.

Belle was a bright young thing, he had always known it. She was sharp as a tack and brave as a knight. Unfortunately, her listening skills seem to have fallen into a crack between her nerves and excitement. She just wasn’t doing what he told her half the time, and when she tried and something went wrong, she got so cross at herself as to mess it up again and again.

As yet, they had driven all of three feet down the road outside of Rumpelstiltskin’s house. Thankfully it was quiet on a Sunday afternoon with no-one to stare at Belle’s antics, nor worry about her crashing into them. Indeed, they would have to actually be moving for much of an accident to occur.

Another bunny hop of a jolt jerked Rumpel in his seat and he bit his lip to keep from exploding at his beloved.

“I’m sorry,” Belle apologised profusely. “That was me stalling again, wasn’t it?” she asked worriedly.

“Yes, dear,” the man with the frazzled nerves told her through gritted teeth. “Do you think perhaps you were just not cut out for driving, Belle?” he suggested as gently as he could.

She looked hurt in any case, and it broke Rumpelstiltskin’s heart to see her big eyes fill with tears. It wasn’t her fault, she was trying her best, but patience was not a virtue that always came easily to the Dark One. Taking a soothingly deep breath, he closed his eyes a moment and then faced her again.

“Perhaps you’re just over-thinking it,” he suggested. “Which is not to say you shouldn’t think about what you’re doing when driving my very expensive car,” he said, not deliberately pointedly but nevertheless it seemed to come out that way.

“But I’d be better off not trying so hard,” she nodded that she understood. “I remember, I was the same with a horse. I must’ve got thrown twenty times in my first lesson,” she laughed lightly at the long ago memory.

“But you learnt in the end?” Rumpel guessed.

“I did,” she agreed. “I learnt to... to be at one with the animal, I guess,” she smiled. “Being at one with your big growling machine isn’t quite so easy.”

There were at least six answers to what she had said that Rumpelstiltskin would never say. Curse the filthy mind of man and beast combined, and supposedly innocent young women who made such inflammatory comments!

“Try it again,” he urged her then, not sure himself why he would.

He had been the one to suggest they give up for today, possibly for good, therefore he had to have gone completely mad as he originally suspected. Perhaps not though, perhaps he was just a man in love willing to do anything at all to make his dearest Belle happy.

“Are you sure?” she checked, worrying her lip. “I mean, I don’t want to break anything...”

“Belle,” he said then, his hand landing on hers at the gear shift, causing her eyes to lift and meet his own. “I have every confidence in you,” he told her definitely. “Try it again.”

She smiled then, spurred on by his faith, and turned her attention to the controls. “Clutch pedal, stick to neutral, start the engine...”

Belle was concentrating so hard, she didn’t hear Rumpel mutter to himself, nor see the flick of his hand as he made an odd gesture towards the front of the car. The girl was just thrilled beyond measure when she suddenly found herself pulling away from the kerb, driving without stalling or failing in any way.

Perhaps it was not entirely right to let her believe she had done this by herself, but Rumpelstiltskin fully believed that now he had boosted her confidence with a little magic, Belle would be fine the very next time they came out for a driving lesson. In the meantime, he congratulated her on a job well done and went on instructing her in her slow and bumpy driving. For now, she was happy, and truth be known, that was all he could ever want.