Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon A Time or any of the characters and storylines in the show. This is just a fanwork made for fun.
This came up while I was writing the next chapter of The Dark Lady and when I saw I already had the whole thing written. I have a real problem with Rumbelle family AU's, someone needs to stop me. But, I hope you all like this.
There were a lot of things that Neal Gold didn't knew about his father, but ever since they arrived London, he was completely sure about what was passing through his mind. He still remembered that one summer, almost seventeen years ago, when he was around six and they came to this city to have a break from Scotland after their parents' divorce.
It had been a shock when Milah told her husband that she was leaving with her lover, an irish man called Killian Jones. For whole six months, Adam Gold had been really mad, trying to be the best father he could while still working as a lawyer. A year passed before he decided that they needed a vacation and they ended up playing the tourists around Notting Hill.
That summer his father met Belle French. She was a beautiful nineteen-year-old girl who worked in a little bookshop in Chelsea, exactly twenty years younger than Adam, but that didn't prevent them from falling in love and having a torrid affair during the weeks they spend there. Everything happened very quickly, after their first visit to the bookshop he asked her out for a movie with them and suddenly she was around all the time, until Adam and Neal needed to go back home.
His father's heart broke when he had to left Belle behind, saying that he unfortunately wasn't willing to try a long-distance relationship. Now, they were back there and by the sad look in Adam's eyes Neal could tell that his father was remembering everything and regretting what he did.
That was the truly reason that he was leading his father through the british streets to the old bookshop.
"Wait." Gold said when he recognised the route. "Neal, tell me that we are not going where I think we are."
Neal smiled. "Papa it has been almost seventeen years, we don't even know if she even still works there."
Leaning on his cane, Gold took a deep breath. He had a bad knee since he suffered an accident some years ago. "This is not a good idea." He said, wanting more than anything to get in a cab and go back to the hotel. "I don't want to go there."
"Come on, papa. If she still works there, we ran off and I pay for lunch."
"Neal - "
"Don't be a coward. I bet she doesn't even remember you anymore."
"Oh, thanks for letting clear that I am not a remarkable person."
Laughing, they crossed the street to find the same bookshop, painted in the same light mint tone, as if the time hadn't passed. Both father and son entered it, looking around at the filled shelves with all kinds of books waiting to be bought. Adam didn't walk too much, he just stood near the door, pretending to have a bigger interest in blue-covered copy while Neal explored the shop.
His memories from the last time he had been there were vague, as he was only a child in that time and now he was twenty-two.
"Can I help you?" A boy asked behind the counter.
"Yeah." Neal decided to say, glancing at his father before making a quick decision. "Can you tell me if a brunette australian woman called Belle French still works here?"
Blinking the boy nodded behind his glasses. "She is the owner now, but she is sick, so I am covering for her." He answered. "I'm Gideon French, her son."
"Her son?" Neal swallowed. "How old are you boy?"
Gideon shrugged. "Sixteen."
"Who is your father?"
"What kind of question is this?"
"Neal?" Gold walked towards them and he looked between his father and the boy, the similarities too evident to be ignored. "Who is this?"
"Good morning, sir. My name is Gideon French, do you need my help to find any book?"
Adam Gold's eyes widened and when they met Neal's, his son just nodded, confirming that he also thought that this boy, Belle French's son was also his.
"Is Miss French around?" Gold asked.
"No, she is sick." Gideon repeated mechanically before narrowing his eyes with a puzzled look in his face. "How do you two know my mother?"
"We - " Gold breathed in, thinking that this couldn't be happening with him. "We dated. Around seventeen years ago."
Something appeared to click inside Gideon's mind. He remembered the histories his mother used to tell him when he was a child, before he stopped asking for them, because he decided that his father was someone whose tales wasn't worth hearing, but looking at the old man in front of him, the boy only saw someone broken. "You are the scottish."
"She told you about me." He said in surprise.
"Yeah, she did and even though she had only said good things about you, all I can feel is that you are the coward that abandoned your pregnant girlfriend."
"Wait there, kid! He never knew that she was pregnant." Neal interrupted, before looking at his father in doubt for a moment. "You didn't, right?"
"Of course not!"
The little bell in the shop's front door jingled when it was open by a beautiful brunette, dressed in a blue coat. "Gideon, sweetie, I brought you lunch from - " She said with her back turned to them, while she closed the door, a paper bag in one of her hands, letting the phrase die when her eyes landed in the two man she never expected to see in there. "Oh, my God!"
"Belle!"
"Adam!"
Gideon came from behind the counter placing a protective arm around her shoulders, one hand coming to check the temperature of her face. "Mother, you should be resting, you were burning in fever when I left home this morning."
"I'm okay."
Gold approached them. "Belle, this is - " he couldn't complete the sentence, he was too busy looking at his gorgeous lost lover and the boy had held her, whose features were so alike his that he could already have the certain that he had helped conceiving him, but he tried again: "This is our - "
"Son." She finished, a sad smile in her lips. "Yes, he is."
From where he was still standing, watching the whole scene, Neal muttered: "Whoa, the secrets from the London's bookshop owner. We have a great book title if we want to write one."
Author's Note: My apologize if there is something wrong with my writing. English is not my first language.