The Enchanted Forest, two years pre-curse

Rumpelstiltskin was surrounded by the shattered remnants of his life longer than he cared to admit, but to fix the broken glass and ruined upholstery would be to clear out the last pieces of Belle that remained and to leave her dungeon room would be to admit that she wasn't anywhere else in the castle. He wasn't quite ready to accept that yet. How had it all come to this, anyway? He just didn't know anymore.

Perhaps Maleficent had been right when she'd advised him to acquire a pet, but it was easy for her to say that when she had Regina for company and Regina in turn had her pet huntsman and her father. If it had been anyone else, he wouldn't have listened to them (he had barely listened to her in the first place) but Maleficent was even older than he was, she understood how so much prolonged solitude could eat away at you. Rumpelstiltskin didn't dare befriend Regina (their adversarial relationship was necessary for both his self-preservation and his ongoing plans) and the idea of having an unwilling bedmate had been less than appealing. No, he'd just wanted some little piece of companionship and Belle had seemed to be perfect. She was clever and determined, and he'd liked that in her. She was brave and he admired that. She was pretty, too, and Rumpelstiltskin was a man who loved pretty things – he wasn't sure he'd ever have been rich long enough to take beauty for granted like some of the fools he made deals with (men who were born into wealth had no appreciation for truly lovely things).

He'd not looked to love her, or even thought himself really capable of it anymore – after all, if Cora had taught him nothing else she had taught him that it was pointless to love anyone when you were immortal. Loving Belle would be like falling in love with a pet dog, or at least it was supposed to be. There was no way he could have spent the rest of his life with her, he could only ever really look forward to watching her wither and die. He had thought that by bargaining for a proper lady and ripping her away from her entire life, he could have ensured that even if he did grow to love her that there was no way possible that she would ever love him. It had seemed absolutely perfect and safe.

Was it really less than a day since Belle – sweet, beautiful Belle – had sat on his dining table and asked why he had bargained for her? She'd thought he was lonely...if she only knew. He'd just needed to be important to someone. Since Bae had been lost only those who coveted his power might have cared if he lived or died. All he had wanted was someone who needed him, someone who would care if something happened to him. And Belle was so good, so kind, he'd been sure that if nothing else she would care. He'd be her entire world and he could love her in the way that as a younger man he would have loved a particularly good sheep dog. As something to offer affection and companionship, something to care about and indulge as long as it did its job, and something that offered absolutely no complications.

Belle, as it turned out, had offered nothing but complications.

It had been safe to love her from afar. The little housekeeper was so far above him in every way that Rumpelstiltskin sometimes had a hard time remembering that this was, ostensibly, his castle and not hers. She had seemed to fill it with herself, moving sweetly in and out of each room and leaving the faint smell of rosemary from the kitchen gardens and the lilac scented soap that he'd acquired because he liked the way she smiled at him when he did something unusually nice. It was never anything extravagant but each time he brought her home a present, whether it was the soap or a baked good or the damn blue work dress and lacy shift she had been sashaying around in the last few months, she always had the same reaction: she'd look at whatever it was he presented, gasp as she realized it was intended for her, and then flash him a huge grin (that started in her eyes of all places, how could one start smiling in their eyes?), and then look up at him as though it was the best gift she'd ever gotten. He'd brought her here to keep the place clean and make it feel a little less empty, not to bewitch him with eyes and smiles and lilacs.

And yet, he hadn't wanted her to stop, either. He could love her, enjoy her smiles and her laughter at his jokes and know it was safe because she couldn't love him, but could never leave him.

If only it had stayed afar then she would still be here right now and he would still be offering her tokens of his affection that she couldn't possibly understand and she would be offering him gentle touches and sweet smiles and he would still be something resembling happy.

Instead, he was still standing in a dungeon room because if he closed his eyes and concentrated very, very hard, he could almost smell her here still.

How had it all gone so wrong?

Storybrooke, 1983

It was October 22, and it was rent day. Mr. Gold was in his element. Rent day was the one day each month he would close the shop early and make the rounds, rain or shine. If he were being honest, he enjoyed it, though not for the reason most suspected. He didn't care about the money, particularly. Not that he didn't need to acquire it to keep his lifestyle intact, mind, but the money wasn't the reason he made the rounds rather than insisting they come to him or sending someone else. He liked to see his tenants where they lived and worked because it was the closest he would come to knowing them. Knowledge was its own sort of power, after all, and Mr. Gold was a man who loved power.

It was just past midday before he arrived at Moe French's flower shop. It was a tiny little hole in the wall – too dark to display the flowers to their best advantage, on its third name change in the last five years (currently on "The A-Zalea Team" in the same font as the logo for the television show "The A-Team" which made Gold want to stab someone), and run by a man who owed Gold quite a large sum of money.

If anything, he knew Moe French too well.

When Gold stepped into the shop, Moe would be taking inventory or be in the backroom if there were no customers. Moe liked to pretend the shop was busier than it was in hopes of preventing a foreclosure. Honestly, as long as Moe met his payments Gold couldn't care less how busy the shop was but it mattered to Moe. He liked to put on a good face.

Gold was not disappointed on entering the shop – Moe was helping the one customer in the building (the school teacher with the nun name, she wasn't one of his tenants) but quickly excused himself as soon as he saw Gold and hurried into the backroom where Gold knew the safe containing the rent was kept.

Moe French was a study in predictability, something that Gold found fascinating. Month after month, it was some variation on the same each time. Other tenants might have a new quip for him or some change in their circumstances. Moe only ever changed the name of his damned shop.

Except, this month, something different happened.

He heard the bell on Moe's door as it swung open, and the two young women who spilled into the building in a fit of giggles were definitely different.

The taller of the two – who was dressed in tight jeans and a looser top tucked into it with a large belt around her waist – he recognized as being Ruby Lucas, granddaughter of one of his tenants and the usual waitress at "Granny's" diner. The shorter, however, caught his attention simply by being new. He recognized her, but didn't know her name, which meant she didn't live in one of his buildings and wasn't that interesting? She was a tiny thing in ridiculous stiletto heels and frilly socks. She had on a short pink sweater hanging off one shoulder and exposing her bra strap, as well as a miniskirt that made the school teacher (Mary Margaret Blanchard! That was it!) blush furiously and pretend to examine a hydrangea arrangement nearby. Both women had identical makeup and their hair was so thoroughly teased he couldn't help but wonder how they got all the hairspray out. If it wasn't for their height difference he wasn't entirely sure he'd be able to tell them apart.

"Hey Pop, you in here?" the shorter one shouted, jumping up and leaning over the counter next to him in order to yell at the backroom. He tried not to notice her skirt riding up, but honestly how could she not feel that draft?

Gold resisted the urge to ask her why she thought two strangers would be standing in her father's shop if the man himself wasn't in. He had a vague memory somewhere of Moe French having a daughter (Laurie? Lisa?), and apparently now he was looking at the woman herself. He examined her more closely, then. She was a tiny thing with horrible taste in clothes, and he could smell her cheap perfume, hairspray, and a vague scent of cigarette smoke as though she didn't smoke but she (or her clothes) spent a lot of time around people who did. She was pretty enough, he supposed, if you liked barflies. She might have been beautiful if not for the shockingly blue eyeshadow and the pink lipstick she was sporting, but even so it seemed old Moe had married a woman quite out of his league in order to produce this little siren.

Gold hadn't known the old dog had it in him.

The girl seemed to sense that she was being looked at, and turned to face him. She didn't flush or look away or behave at all as though she was intimidated by his presence. Instead, she flicked her gaze slowly up and down his body in an appraising fashion, as though sizing him up for...something.

"See something you like, dearie?" he prompted, determined to make her flinch first.

She opened her mouth and looked as though she would say something sarcastic in return, but the moment was interrupted by the return of her father.

"Lacey," Moe exclaimed (ah yes, Lacey, that was her name), his eyes shifting nervously between his daughter and his landlord. "What are you doing here?"

"Can't I stop in and say hi?" She was clearly going for sweet and innocent, but she didn't quite get the cadence right and the way Moe shifted uncomfortably seemed to indicate to her that she would be best served by cutting right to the point. "Ruby and I are going out to celebrate and I need to borrow some cash."

"I thought you had a new job," Moe said, handing a wad of bills to Gold who made a show of counting it in his hand more to eavesdrop than because he thought Moe would shortchange him. Moe had never shortchanged him, nobody ever did.

"What do you think we're celebrating?" Lacey replied. "I start tomorrow, and then I can pay you back."

Moe glanced between Lacey, Mary Margaret, and Gold. This was clearly not a conversation he wanted to be having in front of people. Mary Margaret politely drifted to the back of the shop, and Gold decided he had delved far enough into Moe French's personal life for the month and strode out the door. He had other rents to collect anyway, and seeing Ruby had reminded him that it was lunchtime already. He could pick up something to eat and the rent for the diner and bed & breakfast at the same time.

And if he saw a very tiny Australian woman storming out of The A-Zalea Team twenty minutes later, well, wasn't that an interesting development in father-daughter dynamics?

It was going to be a very good day.