What They Want to Believe

Hungry Dreams

Notes: This chapter is supposed to take place immediately after S3 E1-2: Rapunzel's Return.

Also, I messed with the indentation of this fic, so it's best to read on your computer (or just a larger-sized screen)!! 

Comments really do make my week!!

I have a lot of trouble keeping up with multi-chapter fics like this one, and I can guarantee there's much more chance I'll do a better job at continuing this fic if I know people are interested!!

                                                                                        *******

Varian breathes deep. The city air smells sweet. Sweeter now than it ever had. He forgot how much he missed the smell of flowers, and cupcakes, and new shoes.

"It's lovely out here, isn't it?" Rapunzel voices his thoughts, smiling at him.

"Beats being in a cell, I'll give you that." Varian tries to joke, to fight the lump rising in his throat. "Anything beats Andrew's all-natural scent, that's for sure."

She tries to smile too.

He looks away. He isn't quite sure how to act around her now. She had forgiven him; they'd saved the kingdom together, even. She hadn't sent him back to his cell afterwards...not that they'd talked about it.

Should he pretend like it never happened? That he's always been just another law-abiding citizen, just the alchemist in Old Corona, that kid who caused a lot of little—well, sometimes big—unintentional mishaps... not the villain who tried to overthrow the kingdom...even if it's not true?

Or should they confront it, admit that he spent the last year in a cell, because he'd done terrible things—that he'd try to kill her, her friends and family?

But if they confronted it, admitted it...what would happen? Would that remind her of all the reasons not to trust him, all the reasons she should throw him back into that cell after all?

Something moves in the corner of his eye, and he turns to see Old Lady Crowley fluffing out a sheet, giving him the evil eye all the while.

She does that to everyone, he tells the thing that pangs inside him.

As they continue their stroll through the city streets, Varian notices she isn't the only one with less-than-cordial looks for him.

Feldspar slams his door when they walk by.

...Maybe he had a shoe-related emergency?

There's a woman who ducks into an alley with her baby, a kid who gasps and gets out of the way.

He turns again, and Monty is at their side. He is the first to actually speak;

"You know, you've got some nerve to show your face around here."

Rapunzel taps her foot impatiently. "Well excuuuse me for wanting to—!"

"No—though I'll admit it's a shocker—not you;" he brandishes his frosting-clad spatula from her to Varian, "him."—the alleged 'him's eyes widen—"Since when are you two all cookies-and-cream again? Didn't he try to kill you?"

"'Kill' is a strong word," Rapunzel tries to laugh, looking away, her smile twisting a little.

"What word would use for it?" he folds his arms over his chest.

"Umm..." Rapunzel flicks the frosting her off her dress. "Not 'kill' that's for sure...More like uhh..." She turns to the alchemist, and he doesn't dare return her gaze, for fear of what he'll find there.