Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon A Time or any of the characters and storylines in the show.

Anonymous prompted on tumblr: Can you write a bad angst family thing? You always write happy endings for the angst.
Trigger warning for suicide attempt. I never thought I'd write another season 1 AU, but this prompt could only fit it. Sorry for the angst.

He stood in front of the window, feeling some kind of coldness that had nothing to do with the weather, but with the despair feeling his soul in that moment. She was sat on the hospital bed inside there, both wrists wrapped with bandage, her skin twice as pale as it should be, her lips, once plump and pink, now white and dry, her eyes lost in an invisible point as her trembling hand disappeared inside the acrylic bassinette to soothe the small creature laid inside there, bundled in white blankets. She looked miserable and his heart thumped painfully in his chest at the realization that he had caused this.

Slowly, his eyes slid shut, memories of two different lives getting mixed inside his head, but even though everything seemed confusing, he could still manage to differ the voices of two cruel men. Rumplestiltskin. Mr. Gold. No matter which name or skin he used, he had been the coldest bastard in the world with the only woman who had ever loved him and now this was his punishment: to watch her, weak and hopeless, wishing to be dead and having to force herself to whisper sweet nothings to keep his child quiet.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw that she had pulled the bundle up to her arms and fat tears were now falling from her eyes. A part of him urged to get inside that room, to comfort her and hug her tight, but as the one to cause her the pain she was feeling now, he knew it was better to watch from distance. He wondered if she would reject the child later, but then he saw Belle brushing her lips tenderly against the new-born's forehead, bathing it with her tears and, for the first time in long, he heard her voice.

"I'm sorry," Belle whispered. "I'm so sorry for what I did. I didn't mean to hurt you... But now that you're here, I promise I will never to such a thing again. You will be the air I breath and the reason my heart beats. I love you more than anything."

The child's answer was a wail, a very thin one, which made him think that the poor thing was probably too small and weak. She wasn't supposed to have given birth now, it was too soon, but he had heard that when she arrived the hospital, there was no hope for her so all the doctor could try was to save the baby she carried. But both of them had survived, both were safe and alive and he didn't understand why it felt even worse than facing a death to him. Maybe because he knew that she hated and that the child in her arms was destined to do the same. Just like Baelfire.

He took a step back, eyes still fixed on them, but his mind too lost in the memories to really pay attention to what was happening inside that hospital room.

She was cleaning his house that day – as any other day ever since her father became unable to pay for the rent with only the money he made at the flower shop – when he came back home, almost exploding with anger after things finally made sense to him. Last night, before she went home she had confessed that she was pregnant and he wasn't able to say anything immediately, so he let her go and made sure that he wasn't there when she arrived that morning to do her job. But now that he fully understood the meaning of this, he needed to end this story as soon as he could.

"This can't stand," Gold yelled, storming inside the living room to find her dusting his bookshelves.

"Excuse me?"

Her blue eyes were wide, as if she was slightly scared.

"You need to get rid of it," he lost no time to say. "You can't have this child."

She blinked, then released a sound that was something between a gasp and a humourless chuckle. Her hands dropped to her hips and she lifted her chin, pulling on that petulant attitude that drove him mad at the same time it made him want to lay her down on the floor and fuck her until she was blind with pleasure.

"I'm sorry I didn't make it clear for you, Mr. Gold, but you don't have a saying in it. It's my body, my choice," she stated. "I've just told you because I thought you had the right to know."

"You're going to ruin your life and my life if you keep it," Gold insisted. "I will pay for the clinic."

"No."

The brunette gave her back to him so he couldn't see that she was fighting against her tears. She loved him, she had told him so a couple of failed time and was always snapped at. He said she was young and stupid, that she had no idea of what she truly felt and she hated him for it, but if she couldn't have him, then at least she would have this. The child he had put inside of her.

"Don't be stupid, Lacey, you don't want it," he continued. "You can't even take care of yourself."

Suddenly Lacey spun on her heels, throwing the duster at him and letting some of her tears escape her eyes.

"Who do you think you are to tell me what I can do or not?" She shouted out in anger. "Screw you, Gold. I'll show you're wrong."

He nodded without changing the blank, cold face he had pulled on. Bastard. He didn't act like this when he was in need of a blowjob. She was wonderful and independent when it was convenient for him, but when it wasn't then she was a spoiled girl, who knew nothing about life. Lacey was tired of it, she just wanted him to be honest with himself about what he felt about her and what he wanted, but apparently today wouldn't be the day it was going to happen.

"Fine," Gold snapped. "You're fired."

"What?"

"Get the hell out of my house."

So, she did and she never came back.

He regretted that day, he did it now as he kept watching her - nursing the babe and still whispering to it - and he did it by the moment he recovered his memories when Emma's name woke him up. Mr. Gold had vague memories of her walking around town, almost escorted by Ruby Lucas, the only one who hadn't turned her back to her after she revealed that she was expecting the town's monster's child. Her father threw her out, refused to help her as did he, who pretended she didn't exist and the child swelling her belly wasn't his.

Back then he meant every word he said, or at least Gold did. Rumplestiltskin wasn't less a bastard than him, but wouldn't have commanded her to make an abortion, to rip his own child from her body. In fact, he would have begged his beloved to let it grow and if she didn't want to be involved in its life, he would make sure that at least the babe was safe and cared for. He knew how it felt to lost a child, he would never want to lose another, but his other persona thought otherwise. Gold wanted to inflict that pain to Belle - Lacey as she was called here - when she clearly only wished to have her baby in her arms.

Apparently, the details of the child's conception meant nothing to her, as she traced its bare arm with a finger as if she was seeing light for the first time in her life. She was in love with the little thing, he could see and he felt jealous, because she would never love him the way she loved his babe. He was spell-bounded by their image. He could still remember how he had fucked her against the wall at dungeons of his castle. His pleasure had been immense, but he had meant to hurt her to prove to that stupid little maid that nobody could love him and all she did was to writhe in his arms and reassure him of how much he was wanted. Rumplestiltskin had no mercy, he was rude and forceful and the product of that night laid now on her arms, nursing as the woman who had just tried to kill herself sang to it.

Mr. Gold was not much different from him, although he was crueller. He had used her in all the ways he wanted, not caring even a bit for what she felt. In this land, he had learned, numbers mattered a lot, which was why the whole town was scandalized when they found out about the affair between a young girl who barely reached the age of nineteen with and old pervert in his late forties like him. Gold pretended not to hear the offenses the people made whenever he crossed paths with them after he threw her out, he missed his little toy, but her attachment to him and the fact that she was willing to birth that child, made him forget her in a few weeks.

"Your breathing is so difficult..." Belle murmured from inside the room. "They said your lungs weren't fully ready yet. It's my fault, I know, but I want you get strong. I need you to get strong."

He released a sharp breath. The child was really weak. It could die. If it did, it would kill her like the wounds in her wrists weren't able to and if they both died, then it would be the end of the small spot of light that still existed in Rumplestiltskin's dark, cursed soul.

It was about noon that morning when Mr. Gold made his way to his shop after collecting the rent of a few people. The nuns had been his favourite, because they didn't have all of it and he threatened to throw them out of the convent if they didn't pay him until the weekend. He had a grin on his face and a pair of sunglasses on, leaning heavily against his cane as he walked, enjoying the sunlight, when he heard a shout coming from somewhere behind him and had to turn around to look at a teary-eyed Ruby Lucas, wearing more clothes than she used to in a daily basis.

"Are you happy now?"

"Forgive me, Ms. Lucas, but I have no idea of what you're talking about."

"Lacey," Ruby choked the name. "She slit her wrists this morning. Because of you, because she still loves you and you ignore her and now she is going to have a child that she can't take care of!"

For a brief moment his whole word stopped. Lacey slit her wrists. Stupid girl, what did she think that she would won with it? Wasn't she the one so decided to keep her child and raise it all alone? She certainly should have come to her senses and realised that was never going to make it on her own.

"I offered her a solution, Ms. Lucas, she didn't want to accept it," he said with a shrug. "I'm sorry that she is dead but she chose it herself."

"She is not dead," Ruby yelled, but then her eyes fell to the floor and her shoulders shook visibly. "At least she wasn't when I left the hospital. They are trying to save her baby first."

The most selfish part of him wanted them to fail saving the child, because if Lacey was dead, but the babe was alive, then he would have to deal with people coming after him and trying to make him take care of it, because after all he had made the stupidity of conceiving it.

"Good luck for the doctors then," he said emotionless before turning around and starting to make his way down the street again, straight to his shop, where he hoped to not be bothered.

"You're such a cold-hearted asshole," Ruby Lucas yelled at him. "You never deserved her!"

Yeah, Gold thought, I didn't.

Stupid, silly girl.

He had no idea how long he stayed there, watching Belle tender the baby, but when he heard two nurses talking about how she was going to be locked on the asylum – her father had already signed the papers that allowed them to do so – and the baby was going straight to adoption, he knew he needed to do something to stop it from happening.

She was weak, lost lots of blood and the baby was fragile, he heard it from her own mouth. They were both going to die if they were separated. He dropped his gaze to his cane – a reminder of his past of cowardice – and decided that he could be the cold he was one last time if it was to save them both. Rumplestiltskin took a deep breath and swung the hospital room's door open, startling Belle, who jumped in place and clutched the little bundle closer to her chest.

"What are you doing here?" Belle – no, not Belle, Lacey – asked.

"I've heard about your failed attempt to kill yourself."

"So, you came here to check if it was true?" She laughed humourlessly. "I'm sorry to disappoint, Mr. Gold, but we are both fine. Now, if you don't mind please get away from us before your cold sight can fall over my baby and - God forbid – make something bad happen to him."

He swallowed hard, jealously and something else – pain maybe – filling him. She had a boy, one that would be a reminder of his failures with Bae forever. He was hoping for a girl ever since he woke up from the curse, one that was sweet and innocent like Belle and didn't have anything of him. But life was full of disappointments.

"Him?"

"Gideon French," she said. "My son. Nobody else's."

The babe turned around in her arms, making a soft noise, his tiny hands moving up and the blanket falling a bit to reveal his face. Dark eyes, like his, but a small little face as angelic as its young mother's.

"You're going to my house. You'll stay in one of the guest rooms and be as much of a silent ghost as you can," he defined as coldly as he could. "I'll provide for you and him."

"I don't want to."

"You don't have a saying in this," Gold said, copying the words she had told him so long ago. "Either you come with me or your sweet father will throw you in the asylum and the child will be given to adoption."

She blinked and there were suddenly fat tears falling down her face as she lifted the baby up, laying his little hand on her chest, where he had laid his so many times before.

"What?"

"I'll be back tomorrow morning and you can decide."

He left and she cried.

She hated him and she loved him.

The next morning when he came back, she went to his house. But not for herself. Never again for herself.