He's walking down the street when it happens, when the breath flies out of his lungs, when a hundred thousand ogres punch him in the gut a hundred thousand times, when he sees her. When he sees Belle. She stares in his direction, stares directly at him, and doesn't seem to see him. When she does notice that a strange old man is looking at her, she smiles somewhat warily, and the lack of recognition in her eyes is enough to break a man much stronger than Gold thousand times over, and a thousand times again.
He raises his hand to acknowledge her and does his best to smile, but when she turns her head he ducks into the alleyway because he lacks the strength to keep walking to the shop. His leg gives out beneath him and there is no one to catch him the way he caught her so many lifetimes ago and he falls, and even when he's hit the ground he keeps falling, keeps falling.
He keeps falling, because Belle does not recognize him.
It is only when his body demands he suck in oxygen does he realize that he hasn't been breathing. A small part of him doesn't care. He'd be happier not breathing, he realizes, because if Belle doesn't remember... if she doesn't remember, he's not sure he wants to live.
"Mr. Gold?" A small voice, an innocent, boyish voice. He sounds so much like Bae. Gold opens his mouth to assure Henry that he's all right, but nothing comes out but a strangled gasp. "I'll go get my mom," the boy assures him, and Gold wants to tell him that that is the last thing that he wants, but the boy is already gone. Even if he'd stayed, Gold reminds himself, he wouldn't have been able to say anything anyway because she doesn't remember you.
Footsteps, a woman's, but not hers, so Gold doesn't care. He starts to care a little bit, though, when he realizes that the footsteps are not Regina's either. I'll go get my mom, the boy had said. Gold had misinterpreted. Sheriff Swan, the hero (hero, yes, but not his hero, because she doesn't remember you), comes up beside him and puts her hand on his shoulder. He resists the urge to bare his teeth and growl, like the beast he once was would have done.
"Mr. Gold? Are you alright?"
Do I look like I'm alright? he wants to snap, but all that comes out is a soft whisper that sounds disgustingly like "I'm sorry". He's glad it's unintelligible, because otherwise Swan might think he's apologizing to her, and that's not right, not right at all.
"Would you like me to call someone?" she asks softly.
At the very least he manages to shake his head. He opens his mouth again, he needs to speak, laugh, cry, something, and manages to gasp, "She doesn't - " and then he draws in a raspy breath.
And then the strangest thing happens - Sheriff Swan sinks to the ground beside him and puts her arm around him. "I'm sorry," she says simply, and for a moment he's angry, he's so angry, who does this woman think she is, what has she got to apologize for, she doesn't know anything about him - and the moment subsides and fatigue overcomes him and he is suddenly so, so grateful that Henry did not bring Regina.
"I'm too old for this," he says, and Emma doesn't ask what he means by "this", and truth be told, Gold doesn't rightly know himself. Love, perhaps? If Belle were here, she'd say, "You can never be too old for true love," but it's not true love, it's not true love because no one can ever, ever love me.
It's another minute or two before he realizes that his eyes sting. Gold brings a hand to his cheek - am I crying? - no, not yet, thank the gods, not yet. He wonders briefly if Emma will tell anyone about this, but then his cheeks are wet and he leans his head back and lets in another shuddering gasp and he realizes that he is, in fact, crying.