You Are Not My Baby
-based on a gif of the balcony scene run backwards

Rapunzel was clasping Eugene's hand. She was shaking so hard. They were standing on a balcony, and she could see further then she ever had before, and as frightening as that was, it didn't compare to the feeling of finally meeting her parents. Would they love her? Would they accept her? Would they know her?

Mother was dead, Pascal was hurt, her hair cut, brown, lifeless and dead. But Eugene had come back from the dead to be with her. It had to be okay. It would work out some how.

The door opened behind them. Rapunzel turned and their was a woman, a woman that looked so much like the new her. A few drifting steps to be near this woman. Her eyes not leaving the other's. A hand coming up to touch her cheek. She smiled a tentative smile.

"You are not my daughter," declared the queen.

Rapunzel's heart came loose from her chest and fell into her stomach. "But..."

"My daughter is blonde. You cannot possibly be my daughter," and the queen began to back away.

All of Rapunzel's muscles let go and she collapsed to the ground. "Please..."

"Wait, your majesty. Please," called Eugene. "Look at her, she looks just like you!" he declared.

"So?" said the king, "other impostors have come, all with blonde hair and green eyes. A mother would know her own daughter even after all this time."

"She had blonde hair. I but it this morning and it changed." Eugene explained.

"How can hair change color?" The king said doubtfully.

"I don't know. Her hair was magic, it could heal and it changed color when cut. Ask the PubThugs they saw her with blonde hair."

"Them? We hanged them this morning." declared the king.

"Maximus, he could vouch for her." Eugene tried desperately to find someone they could trust.

"A horse? You expect us to take the word of a horse that she is our daughter!? What kind of fools do you think we are, Flynn Rider? First, you steal the Crown of the Lost Princess and then break out of the prison. Now you come back with this insane a story!? Do you know what it does to us to meet a false princess?" shouted the king.

"She's not a false princess, please. Look at her and the queen, they look alike." Eugene grabbed the arm of the queen and tries to drag her over, but the king grabbed his wrist and squeezed hard enough to make him open his hand.

"You dare touch the royal person! Guards, take this criminal and this fraud to the prison!" The king took the queen in his arms and guided her back into the palace.

"No, please, you don't understand. She really is your daughter. Why would I come back, if she wasn't?" Eugene called as guards swarmed him.

Rapunzel could only sit there in terrible grief, a pair of guards picked her up and dragged her away.

* * *

Rapunzel was alone in her stone cell rocking back and forth. This was all her fault. She should have never left the tower. Mother was dead, and she was about to be too. Her own parents didn't recognize her. Her life was destroyed.

Pascal had limped out of the cell hours ago, he said he was going to try to help.

The door squeaked open. "Come on, you." Ordered the captain of the guard.

She saw Eugene between a couple of guards.

"Eugene." She ran to him her one anchor in this insane and dangerous world she now found herself in. She wanted to hug him, but she was caught by a guard and her hands forced behind her back and handcuffed together.

"It's going to be alright, Rapunzel. We'll figure something out." said Eugene.

Rapunzel was trying to hold herself together. She was going to die, and she had no idea what that was like. Mother had fallen and turned to dust, would she turn to dust too? Mother had been screaming so much. It was going to hurt a lot, and she didn't have her hair anymore to fix it and make it better.

There were banging sound behind her. Eugene had knocked out the guard holding him. She tripped the Captain of the Guard as he passed her. Eugene jumped over his handcuffs and knocked out the guard holding Rapunzel. Eugene searched the guard and pulled out a key, soon they were free.

"Come on. Let's get out of here," said Eugene.

"Pascal is still missing," said Rapunzel.

"Okay, we'll see if we can find him."

They stop at intersections and Eugene peeks around the corner. They rush down the corridor, they hear guards coming and they duck into a room. They hear the guards walk past. Rapunzel sobs. They had found Pascal too. He was on the table there was a ring of keys nearby but he had been cut in half.

Eugene holds her, "I'm sorry. Now we have to get out of here."

Rapunzel nods. She is all numb inside.

They run through many corridors, and make it to the courtyard.

They see the exit, but they are surrounded by the captain of the guard and a hundred guards as he steps out from behind a column near the exit. "You thought you could get away from me again, eh Rider?"

"Sorry, Rapunzel. I tried. It wasn't supposed to end like this," said Eugene.

"I know," said Rapunzel taking his hand, gently.

Guards clamped irons around their wrists and ankles. Rapunzel cried out as they looped some rope around her elbows and tightened it so much they touched. She felt so helpless as they dragged them through the prison.

Rapunzel looked with pleading eyes at her parents, but they looked away. They made her stand on a square on the platform. A guard looped and tightened the noose around her neck, the coarse rope scratching her delicate neck, while another bound her knees tightly together. They then put a hood over her head.

Rapunzel whimpered. She was completely helpless and totally scared, nothing like this had ever happened to her before. Why hadn't she stayed in her tower?

"Eugene?" She asked shakily.

"Yes, Rapunzel." She heard Eugene's muffled voice from her right.

"How long will it hurt?"

There was a long pause. "Not long, then it will be over. You'll meet someone over there. He's ...nice. He'll give you a good hug." Eugene said awkwardly. He had met a man after he died this morning. He had hoped not to meet him again so soon, but it would be okay to be there again. It hadn't been so bad the first time.

"Will we be together, at least?" asked Rapunzel

"...I don't know, I think so, I hope so. ...You were my new dream," said Eugene.

"And you were ...."