A/N: From Rumple's POV. The Gold Family!Verse alters the course of canon after 3A. Nealfire never dies, and he's raising Henry with Emma and Regina.
Rumplestiltskin tapped Belle on the shoulder and beckoned her closer with a playful smile.
She turned away from the bunches of white, gold, and blue balloons she was arranging into clusters for Gideon's birthday party on the front deck of Granny's Diner and smiled. "What?"
"I'd like a private moment with my wife," he drawled, grabbing her hand and yanking her into his arms. He pulled her behind a an elephant ear plant, its broad leaves shielding them from the street and the prying eyes of people passing by. Belle tilted her head in the way he loved and blinked, the look that told him her brain was at work, trying to figure him out. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
"You have me alone," she teased huskily, sliding her arms around his neck.
Several untethered balloons slipped loose from their ribbons and floated up into the cloudless afternoon sky, the breeze carrying them high above Storybrooke and over the forest canopy. From where he sat strapped in his high chair, one-year-old Gideon stabbed a chubby finger toward the flying balloons and squealed in delight.
Belle watched the balloons float away and pretended to pout. "Now look what you did."
"I'll fix it in a moment, I promise," Gold said with a chuckle. "First, I have something for you." From behind his back, he whisked out a gift wrapped in silver and white paper, offering it to her with a small bow. Then he folded his clammy fingers behind his back, eager to see her reaction. He made a fine show of being calm and collected, but giving Belle a present always made him nervous no matter how confident he was in his choice. Although he'd made peace with the darkness inside him, there were still times he questioned himself, moments he felt unworthy of such a wonderful woman's love.
"For me? Rumple, why?" Belle clasped the unopened package to her heart and beamed, her delight warming him even more than the rays of the early autumn sun.
"Do I need a reason to give my wife a gift?" he countered, arching up onto the balls of his feet. He rubbed his finger together, barely restraining himself from ripping open the corner of the paper; he couldn't wait for her to open the surprise.
"No," she said softly. Eyes shining with emotion, she tore off the paper and it fluttered to the floor, revealing a leather-bound book in rich cerulean and etched with a compass. Reverently, she ran her fingers over the cover, then began to turn the crisp, thick pages with care.
"New York, Paris, Milan, Prague, Glasgow, Tokyo, Washington, D.C.!" she read. Belle shrieked and threw her arms around his neck, peppering his face with kisses. "Are we going to all these places?"
He nodded. "We are. It's a second honeymoon – a real one, since we never actually made it out of Storybrooke when we married."
"You mean we never actually left the sorcerer's mansion. All those hiking trails wasted." She threw him a sultry wink.
"True. Do you like it?" He gestured at the book, heart pounding as he waited for her answer.
"Like it? I love it!" She clutched the book to her chest once more, pressing it between them as she hugged him tight, and the expectant breath he was holding escaped his lungs in a whoosh of relief.
"It's a travel diary," he explained, peeking over her shoulder as she leafed through the journal with happy sighs. "We can go all at once, or we can take several shorter trips. Bring Gideon along with us, too, if you wish."
"Yes – it's perfect." Tears gathered in Belle's eyes, and she dashed them away with her fingertips. He handed her a freshly pressed handkerchief.
Every several pages he had marked the destinations he had charted for their trip. The book was populated with maps, descriptions of must-see monuments and places, restaurants featuring their favorite foods, with ample space to record observations and pockets to tuck in pictures.
"I thought you might like to log our travels, write about the places we visit," he said, easing the book out of her hands. "There's an inscription as well."
"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page," she mused. "I can't think of a more perfect quote. Rumple, this is incredible."
There was no stopping the grin spreading across his face. This was no ordinary journal and he was eager to show Belle how it worked. "Anywhere you want to go, we simply add it to the book. Name a place."
"Are you sure?" She pressed her lips together and traced the compass points on the cover with the edge of her nail. "You've done so much for me—for us—already."
"Try me," he crowed with a flourish. He would take her anywhere she wished to go. As long as they could be together, time and place didn't matter.
"How about…maybe….if we have time…we could visit the Enchanted Forest?"
"You really want to go back there?" he asked in wonder. Gold frowned down at Granny's weather-beaten deck; though he had brought most of his most important artifacts and magical objects to this world with the first curse, at times he longed to return to the Dark Castle. But Belle had been a prisoner in Regina's castle and a servant in his. Her mother had died in that land at the ogres' hands. He had tossed her off his estate like trash. Surely most of her recollections of Misthaven were more nightmare than fond memory. "After everything?"
"Back to the place where I fell in love with you?" She cupped his cheek, and he leaned into the sweet, delicate balm of her touch. "Yes, I would like that very much."
"As you wish," he agreed, still in disbelief.
It still confounded him why she wanted to revisit so much sadness, but he brushed away the melancholy. Today was a celebration and left no room for doubts. It was Gideon's first birthday, and for once in his centuries-long life, Rumplestiltskin was looking forward to a family gathering. As long as his three favorite people—Belle, Baelfire, and the birthday boy were there, not even Hades could spoil his revelry.
Rumplestiltskin had reunited with Baelfire in Neverland, and his son had come to love and accept Belle. And Bae had found his own happiness—he, Emma, and Regina were raising their son, Henry, together. In the past year, Gideon had come along and made their joy complete. The months since Gideon's birth had been a blur of stinky diapers and laughter; bleary-eyed midnight feedings and sweet, slobbery kisses. Rumple hadn't truly known magic until he experienced the joy of raising Gideon with Belle. The people he loved were a miracle, the light that conquered his dark existence. He knew the fullness of being part of a family, and it was a headier, more powerful feeling than any magic.
Returning his attention to Belle's book, he settled his hand over a pair of blank pages, spinning a web of color and light. Images appeared on the paper—the Infinite Forest, the ancient caves where the unicorns bred, the fields where the people of Misthaven declared victory in the final Ogres War. All were places Belle had dreamed of seeing when she'd sat on his table in the Great Hall with her legs crossed at the ankles, or curled up by the fire as he sipped his tea. Dreams she'd shared with him. The least he could do was make them come true.
"It's enchanted," she whispered, her voice choked with tears. Their eyes locked and held. "Rumple, you've made me very happy."
"Good. Nothing is more important to me than your happiness—yours and Gideon's."
As if on cue, their toddler gurgled and pushed a stack of plastic rings off the high chair tray and gave his parents a owlish stare. "Uh oh," Gideon said cheerfully, and they both laughed. Throwing toys on the floor was his favorite game, and no matter how many times they stooped to pick them up, he would knock them down again and again, giggling all the while.
"We know. We feel your love every moment of every day." She hoisted Gideon out of his high chair and settled him on her hip as he gnawed on the ear of his stuffed bear. "Promise me one thing?"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"When we leave town for our trip, I won't turn into a tree or anything, will I?"
He bowed. "You have my word."
"Pa-pa!" Little square hands stretched toward him, begging for more attention. Rumple latched onto one of those fat fingers and pressed it to his nose, inhaling the comforting scent of baby powder and sugar.
Belle jiggled Gideon on her hip, then worried her lower lip as she swung her gaze around the deck. "Do you think we overdid it on the party decor?"
Decorations covered every surface of the party area. Streamers, giant balloons, and a large blue, white, and gold banner declaring HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY GIDEON! stretched from one end of the patio to the other.
"Not at all." Rumple shrugged indulgently. He didn't even know the exact day of his own birth, and vowed his son would never be consigned to such a cruel fate. He would blanket the entire town in ribbon and crepe paper if it would make his boy and Belle happy. Gideon deserved the best childhood—spoiled with everything wonderful and right that Rumplestiltskin never had as a child—and enough love to last one thousand lifetimes.
"Here's the cake!" Belle clapped her hands when Granny came bustling through the front door of the diner bearing an enormous marble layer cake and setting it in the center of a white and blue tablecloth.
Gold squinted. "Rather large for four people, isn't it?"
"Not the way you eat sweets," Belle teased, then smoothed Gideon's light brown hair, the same shade as hers had been when she was a little girl.
Gold snapped his fingers, producing a Polaroid camera. "Gideon, smile for Papa!" He took a picture and when the machine spit out the glossy white square of paper, they watched the image of mother and son materialize. "Ah, Gideon has his mama's perfect smile."
"Magical," Belle said, inspecting the camera. "You are full of surprises today, Rumple. Let's finish setting up for the party. Maybe we can take more pictures later when the others arrive?"
"Others?" He cocked a brow. He thought it was just going to be Bae and the three of them, but the huge cake and platters of food Granny and her staff were delivering to the patio suggested otherwise. "How many others?"
"Five…teen."
"Five-teen. I see," he teased. "Is that an actual number, Mrs. Gold?"
"Rumple, could you take care of the balloons now?" she asked, changing the subject with a sweet smile.
Another snap of his fingers made several more bunches of balloons appear. "There."
Gideon threw his stuffed bunny at the new balloons and gave a gummy grin, sporting four shiny white front teeth. "Pa-pa do!"
"He has excellent aim," Gold told Belle with pride.
Belle rolled her eyes at his bragging, but laughed at their son's wide-eyed expression. "Maybe you should do magic tricks for the children today," she suggested.
"Children?" he pressed. "How many 'others' did you say were coming?"
"You take my breath away, Mr. Gold," she purred, winding her free arm around his neck and molding her lips to his.
Gideon squealed and wiggled in Belle's arms as she pressed closer, her right hand trailing down his chest. Granny, who was still fussing with the cake table, coughed. Rumple snorted. If Belle was attempting to seduce him with Granny looking down her bespectacled nose at them, she must have invited half the town to the party. Hell if he was going to complain. He may be considered a respected member of the community now, but he sometimes missed the days when everyone gave him a wide berth. Made it easier to just not give a damn.
"Not enough empty rooms here at Granny's?" A woman's amused voice rang out across the deck.
Reluctantly, Gold pulled out of Belle's enthusiastic embrace; he knew that laugh. Regina Mills had arrived for the party.
"Look, Belle," he said with an exaggerated wink. "The first of our 'five-teen' guests has arrived."
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"Gold." Regina nodded. "Nice to see you, such as you are."
Gold smirked and looked around the deck, empty save he, Belle, and Gideon. "Your Majesty, hello. Didn't expect to see you here today. We've reserved the whole diner this afternoon—inside and out—for a private party."
"It's the little imp's birthday," Regina cooed, tickling Gideon under the chin until he chortled. "You didn't think Aunt Gina would miss it."
"Seeing as you weren't invited…" He turned to Belle, who was again rearranging the clusters of balloons with studious intensity. He knew the answer, but as long as Belle wasn't going to confess, he was going to have fun tormenting her. "Were you invited?"
Regina ignored him in favor of fussing over Gideon, pressing kisses to his rosy cheeks. "Ah-goo!" he yelled in approval, brown eyes radiant.
"Don't you look like the perfect little prince in this outfit?" Regina praised, admiring Gideon's red and blue plaid jumper with coordinating bow tie. "No matching three-piece suit, today, Gold?"
"The tie and the sleeve garters are on order."
"I expect to see him looking like a mini mafia boss at Thanksgiving dinner," Regina challenged.
"You're on," he said with a chuckle.
Emma and Henry arrived next, stopping first to greet the Charmings, who had come through the restaurant and out to the deck, Neal Jr. brandishing a plastic sword as he raced around the adults in circles.
Baelfire approached the deck, a pile of brightly wrapped presents in his arms. He kissed Belle's cheek. "Let me guess…Papa is talking about how gifted my little brother is."
"He was warming up to that, yes," Belle admitted.
"Ha! I knew it."
"My oldest son is remarkable as well," he said, pulling Bae in for a hug. "Did you know about this?" he whispered, arching an eyebrow toward Regina, Emma, and Snow, who were now chatting with Belle.
"Did I know that the two women I share a house and raise a child with would be here today at my little brother's first birthday party? Yeah, we might have talked about it." A grin split his face as he turned to Gideon, who was squirming to get out of the high chair. "Hey, little man! Where's my baby high-five?"
"Do you have any idea how many people she invited?" Gold asked, sliding the tray aside to get Gideon out.
Neal scratched his head. "Papa, I'm not a communications expert by any stretch, but why don't you ask Belle?"
"It would be easier to make love to my wife in the middle of Main Street than to get a straight answer out of her today," he muttered. "She had my vest half unbuttoned when Regina arrived."
"Oh my gods. Gross. Papa, Belle is practically my mom." He covered his face. "Let's make a deal, ok? I don't talk to you about my sex life and—" Neal shuddered—"you never, ever talk to me about yours. I mean never. Never ever."
"Fair enough." He held Gideon out to Bae. "Care to entertain your brother while I introduce myself to these strangers? Who the hell are all these people?"
"Me?" Baelfire shifted from foot to foot, then poked Emma in the ribs, interrupting her conversation with Ruby the Wolf Girl. "Uh, Em? Little help, babe?"
Gideon's huge brown eyes volleyed between Emma and Bae, and Emma crossed her arms and glared. "So because I'm a woman that makes me some kind of baby expert?"
Neal's brow furrowed in confusion. "You shopped for the kid."
"Regina shopped; I wrapped." Emma frowned, moving her hands to her hips.
"But his hands are sticky and he smells like Cheerios and mashed bananas. You know how I feel about bananas." Neal fingered the material of his zippered sweatshirt. "This is a new hoodie. Please?"
Gideon squawked and squirmed and kicked his feet in midair, protesting being held under his armpits. Gold shook his head and drew Gideon against his chest, soothing him with a pat on his bottom. Bae and Emma would stand there arguing until sunset, and Gideon would be celebrating his twenty-first birthday before the squabbling ended. "Never mind, I'll take him with me."
Gold pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. Perhaps he should rethink leaving Gideon in the Swan-Mills-Cassidy household during his and Belle's second honeymoon—at least until he discussed it with Regina. She, at least, could be trusted to care for Gideon properly.
Fifteen minutes later, the deck was crowded with people, so many that Granny had opened the doors to the restaurant so people could mingle inside. Gold maneuvered his way through the throngs of guests, no easy feat in this crush of people. When he located Belle, she was organizing a game of Pin the Sword on the Ogre for a group of children.
"Quite the party, Mrs. Gold," he said, handing her a glass of punch.
His wife swung guilt-ridden blue eyes in his direction. "Oh, Rumple. It's Gideon's birthday. We have to have our family here."
Family, indeed. He harrumphed as the dwarfs left the buffet line with plates of food piled as high as their heads. "Our intimate family gathering has turned into a town-wide gala. I trust everyone has arrived in time to stuff themselves full of the giant cake and vats of ice cream you ordered."
"Maybe?" She pressed her lips together as if she'd already said too much, then continued. "I don't actually know how many guests I invited. All last week people kept stopping me; in the library, on the street, here at the diner. Everyone was talking about Gideon's birthday and how a first birthday party should be a big deal. There's no such thing as too much love and when they assumed they were invited, I couldn't just say no...and no, I'm sorry. I've no excuse, have I? I got carried away. "
"Sweetheart, you wouldn't be my Belle if you hadn't welcomed everyone. Someone has to be the warm, kind, generous, intelligent beauty to the cold skinflint of a beast you married. I like to think we balance each other out."
She latched her hands on her hips. "You know I hate it when you talk about yourself that way. Even in jest, I don't like it."
"Fine, I'll stop. Unless Zelena's coming. If she's one of the guests, I'm poisoning the rest of the food and making good on my reputation as a monster." He was kidding. Mostly.
"Gods, no!" Belle wrung her hands. "I'm generous, not crazy. Besides, she's out of town with little Robin. Visiting some distant cousin in Oz."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Dodged a bullet then, did you, sweetheart? Let's hope she makes it a lengthy stay."
"Quite." Belle pretended to wipe her brow and smiled. "She's just so…"
"Pathetic." He nodded in understanding.
"Exactly." Sharing the joke seemed to melt some of the tension in her shoulders. She smiled sheepishly. "Are you terribly angry with me about the size of the party?"
Gold grinned. "No, I'm not angry at all. You know I love to show Gideon off. As a matter of fact…" He brightened. Since all these guest were here, he was going to regale them with evidence of Gideon's brilliance—whether they wanted to hear it or not. He headed in the direction of his first target: Bonny Prince David.
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Rumplestiltskin unwound multi-colored streamers from the deck railing and flung them into the trash can. With his magic, he could have cleaned up the entire party in a blink of an eye, but Belle insisted they work together and do things the hard way.
"I still can't believe you made blue cotton candy with edible gold thread." She laid a sleeping Gideon in the stroller and pushed it into the shade, then wrapped up the leftover birthday cake.
He swiped a bit of frosting off her cheek, pretending to be indignant at her surprise. "I can spin anything, and sugar is no exception."
She flashed him a look. "But edible gold? For a one-year-old's birthday party? He's a baby."
"Our son is elegant, Belle. It's a good thing I made it. We had to feed the five-teen people you invited."
She giggled and swatted him with the plastic baseball bat the Charmings gave Gideon for his birthday. "And what about the enchanted rocking horse that neighs and eats real apples? When you said you had a special birthday present for our boy, I had no idea you had something quite so grand in mind."
"Marco carved it from a hunk of enchanted tree the Wolf Girl brought back on her last trip to the Enchanted Forest. It'll suffice until he's old enough for his own unicorn."
"Unicorn?" Belle echoed.
"Every young man needs a trusty steed just like every man should have a decent tie." He plucked Gideon's frosting-covered bow tie off a table. "But I'm not sure I like this one. A tie should be long and tied in a double Windsor knot." He lifted his own to prove his point.
She stuck her tongue out at him. "It's a clip-on from Giselle's Baby Boutique, Rumple. He's…"
"Yes, I know. A baby." He looked at her more closely. Something was different. "Were you wearing that outfit for the entire party?"
Belle looked down at her white eyelet top with a grimace. "No, I was wearing a blue blouse until Gideon threw his cranberry juice at my shirt. He screamed 'purple' when it soaked in."
"Of course he did." Rumple beamed. He could never hear enough about Gideon's accomplishments and milestones. Their son, he surmised, inherited the best of each of them: Belle's intelligence and generosity, and his ingenuity and persuasiveness.
"Oh no." Belle tossed a pile of paper plates into the trash can.
"What?" He waved a hand, dispensing with the rest of the paper products and making the deck floor cleaner than when they arrived.
"I know that face."
"Belle, can we help it if Gideon is exceptionally advanced?"
She handed him another pile of gifts to put in the car. "We don't need to apologize for our son's achievements, but bragging tends to alienate people we care about."
"All I'm saying is Neal Jr. is a full eleven months older than Gideon and he's still getting his colors confused. Obviously, he takes after his father," Rumple murmured. "Gallant, superior hand-eye coordination, but not terribly bright."
"Rumple…" she protested, but her laugh lines crinkled with merriment. "It was a coincidence. Gideon's been babbling colors with no rhyme or reason all week. Remember when you wanted him to say Papa, and he couldn't?"
Gold clucked his tongue and unlocked the car. "He could have said it, he just didn't want to at the time. He's not a performing monkey."
"Right." Belle rolled her eyes at him for at least the hundredth time today. "Snow said she asked you whether Gideon was learning to name his body parts. Did you really tell her Gideon could teach her third grade class if he was speaking in complete sentences?"
"It's not as though babysitting dwarves and chasing after princes qualifies her as an educator." He shrugged and piled Gideon's birthday loot into the backseat of the Cadillac. "Don't spoil my fun, sweetheart."
She came to stand behind him, sliding her arms around his waist and resting her head against his back. "I'm not trying to; merely trying to encourage more realistic expectations."
He turned to face her. "Gideon Maurice Gold has the lineage of a Savior and the Dark One running through his veins; not to mention that of the bravest of heroes and one of the greatest scholars to ever live," he boasted, bending to kiss her nose. "Realistic expectations went out the door a long time ago."
"Well," she said, her dimples making deep grooves in her flushed cheeks, "when you put it that way…"
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