"Tell me again why we are doing this and why here of all places?" Gold asked as Belle sat making a list at the kitchen table.
"Because it's what they do here, and because Snow and Charming aren't finished getting their house fixed up," she said calmly. They both knew the reasons, but he didn't like them. Of course, there were reasons why the Thanksgiving Day celebration should be held at their house. It was yet another holiday that they had never had in their own land, but they were still stuck here. It did have similarities to end of harvest festivals at home. But that didn't make it any easier for him. True, the Prince and Princess had just bought a charming house not far from their own that would have almost as much room as the house that he and Belle occupied. But it was also what was politely termed a 'fixer upper' and it was still more full of painting supplies and construction materials than furniture. But how that led to this celebration being held at his house (and why he had agreed) he wasn't certain.
"Are you really that unhappy about it?" Belle asked him. She had that look, biting her lower lip just a little in the way that drove him to complete distraction, and her blue eyes were wide and just a little concerned.
"No," he said finally. He knew he would give in; he usually did, unless for some reason he thought it would be unsafe. Belle had been a little distracted recently, and he was concerned about her, though she told him she was just tired. If she really wanted this, he would give it to her. He was still trying to get used to all the new things in his life; reunited with his son, getting engaged to marry the most beautiful woman in the world, and becoming use to being a grandfather in a world he had never paid much mind to before the curse was broken, he was feeling just a little...overwhelmed.
"Good; you know that it will make everyone happy." He failed to comment. After all, before he had found Belle again, he had not much concerned himself with anyone's happiness, his own included. Now his life was much more complicated than that. Storybrooke, Maine was a town that walked in two worlds. The inhabitants had all come from a land of myth and magic before being transported here, then had lived for almost three decades in a curse-induced bubble that had kept people who didn't belong from staying, and the inhabitants lost in a strange timeless half state. Now with the curse broken, the townspeople knew who they had been, and the outside world had found them, sort of. Tourists came, for the same reason that they came to any other small town in Maine. Though there weren't all that many of them, still that they could come was a big enough change. Fortunately, thanks to a little bit of magic, they never stayed more than the usual time. Things could be awkward when Red went running as a wolf under the full moon or the dwarves had too much to drink at Granny's and started singing. Then there was the giant, Tiny and his magic beans, which would hopefully some day take them back to their own world, at least the ones that wanted to. But that was something that he was still working on. It would take big magic to transport them all and restore their own world, and working it from a land almost entirely devoid of magic was going to require all of his skill. Meanwhile they tried to keep going, tried to keep everything as normal as it could be.
Rather than think about the larger issues, he decided to focus on now and enjoy the last few minutes of his fiancee's company before he went off to open the store. It was going to be a long day. The other thing about tourists was they actually shopped. Rumplestiltskin, or R. Gold, was accustomed to his shop being frequented by people who lived in town, who he knew and whose stories he knew. They came looking for gifts, pieces of their past, or the odd deal, which it was against his nature to refuse. Though he was much more careful about those than he used to be. Now people came to buy things. It also wasn't easy to talk them out of buying things that really shouldn't be out in the world, pieces that belonged to those around town who weren't ready or hadn't realized they needed them yet. You just can't sell someone else's magic to another. He tried to be polite, charming, and as cold as he always was, but some people were just immune, even to outright rudeness. Rumplestiltskin actually considered closing the shop, opening only by appointment, but then what would he do with his time? He technically could practice law, but that was just as useless. Other than a spate of divorces and remarriages after the breaking of the curse (Regina really did have some strange twisted fascination with putting strange couples together; he almost admired it, in a sort of morbid way), people had settled down pretty quickly.
Of course they were short a DA. King George had been a difficult problem to deal with, them not having the facilities to really hold him for an extended time period. Charming had been really unsure how to deal with him, and with Emma gone, he had been left with a very difficult decision. Rumplestiltskin had offered him the way out of it. Tossing him across the town line had been something of a pleasure, and he had graciously given the honour to Red, the wolf girl being the most hurt by his actions. Albert Spencer had no memory of his murder of the polite young mouse who drove the tow truck, but he knew that he had made himself unpopular and was even now working as a senior ADA in Portland. If he thought there was something odd about the mirror over his dresser or the one behind the door in his office, well he never showed it. But no, that wasn't the sort of thing that he wanted to do. He enjoyed working with his hands, repairing the antiques in his shop, making sure things made it back to where they belonged when they belonged, or else never made it out at all. It was amazing; the strange magical junk that had been hiding around Storybrooke during the curse; lucky that no one had blown anyone up, or turned themselves into something unnatural.
"I'm not sure about lunch today," Belle said, breaking into his thoughts.
"What love?" he said, disturbed. He knew how much Belle enjoyed their lunches together. They had a regular schedule, more or less. Tuesdays and Thursdays he walked over to the library to spend lunch with her, while Wednesdays, which had always been his late night at the shop, they met at Granny's. Friday and Saturday she came to the shop, sometimes bringing a full picnic lunch on Saturday, since now she had help at the library and could take a day off. It didn't matter, as long as they had time together. It was important, to both of them, or so he thought.
"It's nothing to worry about, Rumple, and you know I love our lunches together. But I promised I would get together with Snow about the food, and she only has a little break since the children don't start their hols 'til tomorrow. I promise I'll make it up to you," she said rising from her place at the table to come and lean down for a kiss. With a wicked smile, he pulled her off her feet into his lap.
"Will you?" he said. "And how will you do that? Perhaps a demonstration is in order before I decide whether I agree?" He teased her before she closed her lips over his in a kiss that even after this time never failed to amaze him. In fact, he could have easily been persuaded to stay home and take Belle back upstairs. She leaned even closer, resting her head against his cheek, nibbling gently at his throat.
"Now," she said. "About that agreement?" she asked smiling up at her.
"Are you sure I can't convince you to make it up to me first?" he asked. After all, she was already in his arms. "You can be a little late, surely." Rumplestiltskin nuzzled at her, pulling her head back so he could gain access to her neck.
"Darling," she whispered, but he was too busy to notice. "Rumple, please," she whispered.
"What, my love," he whispered, his lips moving against her throat. "What is it you want from me?"
"What I want is you to take me back upstairs so I can show you just how much I will miss you, but I can't. Really I can't, and neither can you," she said, and he could hear the regret in her voice.
"Very well," he said, planting one last kiss on her lips. Still, it pleased him more than he could admit the length of time it took her to pull herself away from him. "Perhaps after this Thanksgiving, I can close the store for a few days and you and I can..."
"How about a week at the cabin, just you and I?" she said, the warmth in her voice heating him further.
"I could take you anywhere in the world you know," he said standing up slowly, preparing to put his cup and plate in the sink.
"You could, yes, but all I really want is to be with you."
Unable to think of anything that was worth saying after that, he leaned over and kissed her quickly, before moving towards the door before he couldn't resist anymore. "Have a good day love; dinner tonight?" he said from the door.
"We have all this cooking to do; why don't I bring home something from Granny's?" she said.
"An even better idea; why don't I?" Belle smiled at him. It didn't encourage him to leave any faster, but he forced himself out the door.
Once he was gone, Belle allowed her expression to change. She hated lying to him, really she did. Well, actually it wasn't so much of a lie; she was meeting Mary Margaret at the school briefly over her lunch break to compare their lists and decide who was cooking what. But then she had an appointment at the hospital. That was the part that scared her. She and Rumplestiltskin had never discussed it, not before, certainly not now. She knew he was good with children, and he missed the years he had lost when Bae had been lost, but did he want to have a child now, with her? Belle didn't know, but now was not the time to worry about it, not until after her appointment with the Doctor. At least it wasn't Dr. Whale, er Dr. Frankenstein. While she had a great deal of sympathy for the character in the book, it was a long way from allowing the man to treat her. Besides Rumplestiltskin, who liked him as well as he liked anyone, didn't trust him to tend her, she certainly wasn't going to either. Not that her future husband trusted anyone particularly with her; but he was a little over protective.
The problem was she needed someone to talk to, someone who knew about pregnancy. Ruby was a good friend but no help, and she wasn't sure she was ready to share this with Snow, or with Emma even though both had been through it. First things first though, she thought, making sure she wasn't just imagining things. She looked at her watch, grabbed her lists and coat and headed out to start her day. She would have all afternoon to worry about it.
Her meeting with Mary Margaret went well, and quick. She left with her shopping list, thanking the other woman for her offer to share her sandwich but using the excuse of having to get shopping done (which she did) to take herself off to the doctor. That meeting went, well exactly the way she thought it would. The doctor confirmed what she had already thought herself; she was definitely pregnant, about six weeks along. The rest went by in a swirl of words that she couldn't even begin to comprehend. She vaguely remembered the woman asking her if she was happy, and what her plans were. That brought Belle out of her fugue state for long enough to tell her that yes, she was happy. It wasn't like the doctor didn't know who the father was; the whole town knew about her and Rumplestiltskin, more than half of them had seen him propose at the Midsummer Ball. The question still remained of how to tell him and what to say. After securing the promise of the doctor to tell no one (the town being a gossip haven), she thanked her, and promised to make a follow up appointment after the holiday and after she had told him. Belle was pretty certain of the Doctor keeping her confidence. People still walked carefully where her future husband was concerned.
So it was that she found herself some time later sitting on a bench in the park, a handful of pamphlets clutched in her hand, trying to figure out how she was going to tell the most powerful man in this world that he was about to be a father after a gap of several hundred years. It wasn't that she thought he would be angry about it; she had seen him with Henry, and with the children at Halloween, when he didn't know that she was watching from upstairs. Honestly, she had planned to come down and help him, but he had seemed so truly happy, playing the way he had in their old world, only without the bitter edge. He had played the gallant monster with all the princesses, and the sneering villain with the knights. But it was a long way to having a child of his own with all the disruptions and upset that would cause to their life. If she was honest with herself, they had never much talked about it. She didn't like him to focus on the age difference. She knew he thought he was past the age where such things as contraception were necessary, and she had been too busy getting used to freedom, and having him in her life.