-Tangled Spoilers- The Tower

A knock on the door. A pause. And then again. And then twice in succession. And then a voice.

"Rapunzel?" She didn't even move her gaze from the window. "Rapunzel, are you in there?" She made no move towards the door, or no effort to call out. "Rapunzel, I'm coming in." The door creaked open and Eugene entered, slowly. Immediately, he saw her, sitting on her window sill and staring out into the kingdom, her hands gripping the ends of her short brown hair.

It had been only a week and a half, barely ten days, since she shut herself up here. At first she wouldn't even unlock the door for food, eating whatever she had stashed away in her room. He would knock on her door for hours for the first three days, and she would not answer. It wasn't until the fifth day that she opened the door just a crack and requested some paints, and some more food. When she opened it again to accept everything, he had tried to push his way into the room, but the reaction was… unfavorable.

After that he didn't push it for a while. He would just knock, several times each day, and bring her food. Today, though. Today she didn't make a sound, she didn't protest to him saying he's coming in, and she didn't push him out when he did. She just sat there, staring out her window. He took a few more steps inside, Pascal gripping to the fabric on his shoulder as they entered the room for the first time in ten days. "Rapunzel?" he said, almost like a whisper.

It seemed to start at the ceiling – though how she got up there he couldn't figure out. The very top had, in bright golden paint, the kingdom flag adorning the domed ceiling. Out of it in purple spun more rays but they reminded him more of an octopus than a sun. It seemed as if it was about to engulf the whole room, stretch just a little farther and ensnare people while they were asleep.

"Soooo… redecorating?" he asked with an unsure smile. He was slowly inching closer to her, all the while noting how the paint etched from the ceiling and covered every inch of wall space in her room. He was certain that the bathroom had received the same treatment. The entire eastern wall was covered with a painting of her old tower. Directly across from it was the kingdom, half in day, half in night, lanterns flying around it. Even her bed curtains had paint stains on them, coloring the white fabric a violent splash of green and yellow.

The door echoed shut in the painted room, and she turned her head sharply at the sound. Eugene was caught, for a moment, before putting a hand behind his head and staring at his shoes, smiling uncomfortably. He looked up at her, eyebrows raised, all charm and hopeful, and found out she had gone back to staring out the window. Immediately he stood up straight and frowned at the ineffectiveness of his approach. Usually she at least laughed at that. Usually the laughing ended in a kiss.

But now she just stared outside the window.

"You know what I did, right?" she said, barely a whisper. Immediately Eugene took a few steps closer to her, trying to see out the window at whatever she was looking at. But her eyes were closed, her head leaning against the sill and her face looked so… tired.

Slowly, Eugene shook his head as he inched himself close enough to lay a hand on her shoulder. He stopped, however, and let his hand rest on the wall, covering up part of a golden river painted along the nook Rapunzel was sitting in. He glanced at it again, briefly. Maybe it was hair.

She never opened her eyes as she continued. "I ran away again." She smiled, but it was the ironic smile that looked so foreign on her face. "Only this time, I ran to a tower. I built one around myself just like I had before, and I set a trap for you to come in and show me what the world can be." She finally looked around the room and whispered, tired, reluctant, and disappointed. "I can't believe I did this."

He dragged his fingers over the golden painting, transferring his touch to her shoulder and guiding his hand gently down towards her elbow. But he barely touched her before she cowered away from him, moving closer to the window in the process. "Whoa, whoa, ok, so, not ready to move yet," he said, putting his hands up in an effort to try and calm her down.

"Do you promise?" she asked.

"What?" he said, slowly lowering his arms.

"Do you promise that you'll show me a new world out there?"

He hated his answer, he hated the tone of her voice. And after a moment of looking at her, after walking through the tomb she recreated for herself, he wished it could be anything but. "No," he said slowly. "But I can show you all the good things about the old one."

She glanced out the window again. "What about the rest?"

This time he took her hand and she didn't resist. She allowed herself to be pulled away from the window and into his arms, burying her face into his chest. He rested his chin on her hair, holding the frail, thin girl tightly. "The rest, I'll be here for. And I'll help you through it." He slowly turned her shoulders away from him, finding her face and smiling at it warmly. "That, I promise."

She smiled faintly, instantly seeming much more like herself.

"And hey. When I make a promise, I never, ever break it. Ever." He grinned at her small chuckle. There she was. There was Rapunzel again, after ten days of hiding.

That was the first time she did this. It got easier, slowly, and she stopped painting every inch of the walls. She stopped staring out windows for days. She stopped locking the door. With every time, it got a little bit easier to bring her back. Every time, she waited, silent, for her guide.

And every time, he climbed the tower.