Summary: "Emma remembers the man who started it all. Emma remembers Rumpelstiltskin. That's not his real name, of course…" An alternate way in which Emma found Storybrooke, based on the theory that Regina allowed Gold one trip out of town to collect Henry. What if he'd made a little detour? [One-Shot]
Disclaimer: Alas, I do not own Once Upon A Time. I do, however, own a worrying obsession with Rumpelstiltskin.
Note: I was thinking about OUAT's logistical issues the other day, or more specifically, the issue of how Henry arrived in Storybrooke as a baby when theoretically no-one can leave to collect him or arrive to bring him. Combining this with the knowledge that Gold was involved in the adoption somewhere along the line, I came up with the theory that Regina had let him leave town to collect Henry, although naturally there were some conditions attached. Gold being Gold, however, is determined to find a way around these… Enjoy the fic.
Full Circle
Sitting in her little car outside the Boston flat she has just emptied, ex-bail bondsman Emma Swan remembers the chain of events, set in motion ten long years ago, that have led her to make her decision. Emma remembers the man who started it all. Emma remembers Rumpelstiltskin.
That's not his real name of course. His real name is Mr Gold. But on the first, and indeed only, occasion that they met, she had called him Rumpelstiltskin, and this is the name by which she likes to remember him. She closes her eyes and thinks back, ten long years.
"You've got a visitor, Swan."
Emma has never had a visitor in all the time she has been in prison, unless you count the midwife who delivered her baby and the social services worker who took him away.
"I don't get visitors," she tells the warden sullenly. She's not in the mood for company. She heard through the grapevine that the final paperwork has been signed and her baby is being taken away for good today.
"Well, you've got one now. I'd hop to it, sister. He doesn't look like the type to be kept waiting."
Emma's curiosity is piqued, and she goes with the warden.
"Who is he?"
But the warden makes no reply. Unseen by her keeper, Emma rolls her eyes. Very helpful. As soon as she sees the man waiting for her, however, she knows that she has never seen him before, but that she will remember him for the rest of her life. He's the kind of man who creates an impression simply by being. He's not physically imposing by any manner or means, in fact, he looks a bit on the small side, but he has a dangerous air of something that commands respect. She'd peg him at late forties, early fifties, and his suit is probably designer. Who on earth is he, and why on earth has he come to see her?
He's drumming his fingers on the table in front of him impatiently but when he sees Emma he stops and smiles at her. It's not a reassuring sort of smile, more an expression of triumph.
"Miss Emma Swan, I presume? Pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Mr Gold."
That's it. No other information, no further introduction, no business he represents, not even a first name. Just Mr Gold. Emma stares at him. He sighs and presses on.
"You are no doubt aware that your son has been adopted and that the final papers were signed this morning, Miss Swan. I am the one who will be taking him to his new home, and I took the liberty of a little detour to speak with you."
Emma snorts.
"Yeah, well, thanks, but you needn't have bothered." She doesn't need the fact that her son is now legally someone else's rubbing in. "I know he's gone and I know there's nothing I can do about it, so thanks for taking time out of your day to come and tell me something that I already know."
Mr Gold merely leans back in his chair and raises an eyebrow. Emma huffs.
"Why are you here? To gloat? I don't even know you."
"Oh, you will, Miss Swan. I'm fairly sure of that. Since you ask, I am here because you may wish to track me down in the future, and I wish to facilitate this."
"And why would I want to do that?"
"Because I am currently the only link between you and your son. Closed adoptions do not make a habit of telling their participants everything about each other. Therefore, I am your only hope of an uncomplicated reunion five, ten years down the line."
A tiny, tiny flicker of hope ignites itself in Emma's chest, despite the gnawing feeling that what the man is proposing is probably illegal. There is the tiny flicker of hope that all is not lost. She quickly hides it under her building anger, letting Mr Gold, whoever the hell he is, make the next move. He holds up a neatly printed card with a number and an address on.
"Miss Swan, everything in life has a price. You have already paid a hefty price in this life, but have not received anything in return. Think of this as a gift."
"I don't want it," Emma mutters. "I want my baby back."
Mr Gold smiles, but this time it is a sympathetic smile, and for a brief moment, Emma sees something in his eyes that looks familiar. Then it is gone.
"That is exactly why I believe you worthy of its receipt." He looks at his watch. "Alas, my time is running short; I have to be back before midnight and I do not want to think of the consequences if I'm not. I'm cutting it fine as it is."
He makes it sound as if his car's going to turn into a pumpkin.
"Remember what I said, Miss Swan. All you have to do is track me down."
"And how the hell do I do that? There are thousands of Golds in America."
"Storybrooke, Maine. That is where I am taking your son, and that is where you will find me."
Emma snorts.
"Never heard of it."
"Few people have. But you'll find me, Miss Swan."
The stress is off, wrong. You'll find me. No-one else will.
"Still," she continues. "A first name might be helpful."
He gives her a grin that is just a little too wolfish for Emma's liking.
"Why don't you take a guess?"
Emma rolls her eyes but it's his time they're wasting. He's the one whose car's going to turn into a pumpkin if he's not back in his mysterious Storybrooke, Maine, before midnight.
"Fine. Sean. Leroy. Sidney."
He shakes his head with a smile. No, he doesn't look like a Sean, Leroy or Sidney. He's too… refined for a name like that. She tries again.
"James. Thomas. Frederick."
He laughs at a private joke but shakes his head. Emma tries to think logically. She considers his accent, the slight Scottish lilt.
"Angus? Hamish?"
"No, and no. You've one guess left, I'm a busy man."
His silly game is annoying her now, and her next guess is purely for irony.
"Rumpel-bleeding-stiltskin."
"Not bad, Emma. Not bad."
"What the hell do you mean by that?" she snaps, but he's already gone, limping away with his cane, seeming weakness serving only to increase his air of danger…
Something inside Emma had wanted to see him again, wondered if he'd pay her another visit, but he never did. Back in the present she digs out the card he gave her all those years ago, kept for posterity always. She flips it between her fingers and another memory stirs.
Two weeks after she's released, Emma finds Mr Gold's card amongst her effects. It's the address of a bank and what appears to be an account number. At first she ignores it, she doesn't want his money, but after over a year of staring at it for hours on end and not being able to bring herself to throw it out, curiosity overtakes her.
It's a nice bank, an upmarket bank, the kind of bank for people whose starting deposit is over a million. Emma feels extremely out of place, awkward twenty-year-old with a criminal record, as she walks up to the counter and hands over the card.
"I'd like to know how much is in this account, please."
The cashier looks at her.
"Can I have a name and some ID, please?"
"Uh, sure. I'm Emma Swan." She hands over her driving licence. The woman studies it for a while and smiles.
"Certainly, Miss Swan, we've been expecting you. If you'd like to follow me, please."
Emma does so, nervously wondering if this is all an elaborate joke or set up.
"Can't you just print me a statement or something?"
"It's not actually an account, Miss Swan, it's a safety deposit box. It was opened in your name eighteen months ago when a beneficiary made the initial deposit, and it has not been touched since."
She leads Emma into a small room with a table and chair, and leaves for a moment. She returns with a large deposit box and places it on the table.
"You can stay in here until someone else wants to view a box," she says. "I'll bring you a form to fill in just in case you want to make a withdrawal."
Emma opens the box, and inside it is another box. She carefully takes this one out and reads the small note taped to it.
Believe, Miss Swan, it reads. Remember, all you have to do is track me down.
She opens this box, a beautifully ornate one, and inside is a book, its cover embossed with four words:
Once Upon A Time
A book. That's what he was squirreling away for her. Emma can't quite believe it. She's tempted to put it back and leave it on principle, but curiosity overtakes her and she opens it. It is a compendium of fairy tales galore, everything under the sun. Emma breathes in sharply; she has always had a weakness for fairy tales. She's always liked to be able to escape the dullness of her everyday life. These tales are better than most she's read because there's something just a little bit different about them. Snow White is a warrior princess. Red Riding Hood is a werewolf. The Mad Hatter was not always mad. And Rumpelstiltskin has a hand in almost every tale.
And the ending, a cliffhanger, knowing only that one day, the tiny heroine Emma will return and free them all.
"Miss Swan?" The lady comes back. "Miss Swan, the bank is about to close."
She has been reading for three hours.
"Would you like to make a withdrawal?"
Emma nods, quickly filling in the necessary paperwork and putting the book back in its box, carrying it out of the bank as if it's the Holy Grail.
She had taken the book home and she had read it cover to cover so many times that she could virtually quote the entire thing word for word. Every time she moves, every time she packs, it is always there in pride of place, next to her baby blanket. It was the book that had led her to make her decision. She peers at it from the driver's seat – it's in the passenger foot-well in its box, Mr Gold's note still sellotaped to it. She's finally started to believe, not necessarily in the fairy tales, however many times she's envisaged herself as the Emma of the story, now grown up and on an intrepid mission (usually involving dragons in some shape or form) to rescue her parents and all of the kingdom. But she believes that now is the time to try and find her son, and she believes that she can track down Mr Gold.
Emma starts the car. Storybrooke, Maine, is not on any maps, but Mr Gold had said she'd find him, and he hadn't been lying. Even if she has to drive down every road in the state, she is going to find this town and she is going to find her little boy. She's gone less than three hundred yards before she stops again, suddenly thinking the better of it. Her son probably won't want her in his life. It's been ten years, he'll have grown up in a new family, he won't have the faintest inclination to…
Emma starts the car again with a certain degree of determination. He is her son and she has a right to find him if she wants, so that's what she's going to do.
X
She has been driving for six hours with no luck, stopping only for lunch and fuel, when she finds a road that isn't marked on her map. Intrigued, she turns down it, and suddenly she's there, driving towards a sign saying 'Welcome to Storybrooke'. A few minutes later, she reaches the town itself, and she drives round a couple of times to familiarise herself with the layout. It looks just like any other typical New England fishing town, nothing out of the ordinary. Emma wonders why it isn't on the map.
She parks in what she presumes to be the main street and gets out. The few people around turn and stare – presumably they don't get many newcomers. Perhaps if they wrote to the cartographers and got themselves on a decent map of Maine, visitors wouldn't seem such an alien concept. Ok, maybe the bright yellow of her car isn't helping, but still, it's the principle of the thing. But Emma is concerned with a far bigger problem than narrow-minded locals. How on earth does she find one man in a large town, when all she has is a surname and a physical description ten years out of date? She decides against wandering around aimlessly and goes into the diner she's parked outside. It looks to be the only place to eat in the town so it's probably a safe bet to start with.
"Erm, hi," she says to the waitress behind the bar. "I'm new here, and I'm looking for someone. Mr Gold."
The young woman purses her lips.
"The pawn shop at the other end of the street. On the corner," she says quietly.
Something tells Emma that Mr Gold is well-known in this diner, and his reputation is distinctly unfavourable. She thanks the waitress for her information and leaves, heading up towards the shop on the corner. She's come too far to be perturbed now.
The sign outside the shop swings in the breeze. Mr Gold, Pawnbroker and Antiquities Dealer. She takes a deep breath but her courage fails her so she has to take three more before she actually enters. He's there, standing behind the counter, and he looks up as the bell rings, smiling in recognition. He doesn't seem a day older than when he visited her, ten years ago. Same cane and same limp as he walks towards her, same dangerous air and same expression of triumph. Hell, it even looks like the same suit.
"Miss Swan, I've been expecting you. It's been a long time, hasn't it?"
"Ten years," Emma murmurs.
"I told you that you'd find me eventually," he says, and he gestures towards the back room with his cane. "Would you care for some tea?"
Emma nods and follows him, looking around the shop in awe at the plethora of beautiful items that, in any other setting, would be considered junk. She takes the offered chair and watches him prepare the tea, with loose leaves in a proper pot.
"How have you been keeping, Miss Swan?" he asks.
"Oh, you know. Here and there. Doing this and that."
"Of course."
"And you?"
"Running my shop. Keeping an eye on your son."
"My son," Emma breathes. "I, well, I came to find him… I was looking at the book one day… The book, I never got the chance to thank you for it."
"You're most welcome. I hope you liked it."
"I love it," Emma admits. "I still have it. In fact, it's in my car right now."
Mr Gold smiles, and mutters something under his breath that Emma thinks she recognises as 'attagirl'.
"Anyway," Emma presses on. "I thought it was the right time to find my son."
"A very wise decision," says Mr Gold. "Especially since he has decided that is the right time to find you."
"He has?" Emma has never considered for a moment that her son would want to find her, let alone be actively looking. Mr Gold nods.
"Henry has not had a particularly bad childhood, but shall we just say that his adoptive mother doesn't have a very strong natural maternal instinct? He has known he is adopted ever since he was old enough to understand, mainly because Ms Mills is unmarried and he was asking awkward questions about his father."
Emma has to hide a smile in her teacup. Mr Gold looks at his watch.
"He should be here soon."
Emma splutters, choking on her tea.
"Did you plan this?"
"No, my dear, fate brought you together. Henry often comes to the shop after school. I hold something of his in safekeeping for him. Ms Mills doesn't approve."
"Like a safety deposit box?" Emma asks wryly.
"Indeed, Miss Swan."
There's a pause, but the silence is not uncomfortable.
"There is another reason why Henry is very eager to find you," he continues, "but first, tell me, do you believe in fairy tales?"
"It depends," Emma begins, but before she can elaborate, the shop door tinkles again.
"Mr Gold! Mr Gold!"
Emma freezes. The voice belongs to her son. She is desperate to see him but she cannot unroot herself and follow the pawnbroker as he limps through to the shop to greet his new customer.
"Good afternoon, Henry."
Emma listens to their conversation, wondering if there will be an opportune moment for her appearance, or whether she'd be best sitting this one out.
"Have you done anything about finding my mum yet?" Henry asks. Emma's heart skips a beat.
"Patience, young Mills. I have always maintained, have I not, that she will find you."
"But you know that no-one can come to Storybrooke!" Henry wails. "The curse," he adds conspiratorially.
"How many times have I told you to believe?" Mr Gold sounds amused. Emma is shaking, and she realises that in the tenseness of it all, her body has forgotten that breathing is pretty essential to the continuation of life.
Believe, Miss Swan.
Do you believe in fairy tales?
It's uncanny. Far too uncanny.
"But you're a lawyer!" Henry exclaims. "Can't you do something lawyerish to speed things up a bit?"
"Since when has lawyerish been a word? And Henry, I haven't been a practising lawyer since before you were born. You of all people know that I have never technically been a practising lawyer in this town at all. The last time I did anything remotely lawyerish, as you put it, was when I sorted the adoption for Her Majesty." Henry snorts and Emma suspects that this is a long-established nickname for his adoptive mother. "And believe me," Mr Gold continues. "I sped things up as much as I could then."
Emma's curiosity is too much. She has to see her son. Cautiously, she peers round the doorframe into the shop. Mr Gold is up a step ladder unlocking a high cupboard, and leaning on the counter is Henry. Her son. He sees her and starts.
"Oh, I didn't realise you had a visitor, Mr Gold, I can come back later…" But the words trail off as he looks at her properly and realises he's never seen her before. "You're her, aren't you? You're my mother?"
Mr Gold looks down from his cupboard.
"Henry, this is Miss Swan, an old acquaintance of mine. And yours, in fact."
Emma nods.
"You can call me Emma," she says, although her voice is barely audible.
Henry is positively glowing.
"Emma!" he says. "Like in the book! I knew it!"
"Two minutes ago your faith had deserted you," says Mr Gold. "Speaking of which." He hands down a book to Henry, and Emma recognises it as a carbon copy of her own. Suddenly, she needs to sit down, she feels everso slightly faint. Before she knows it, Mr Gold has her perched on the bottom rung of the stepladder, holding out her cup of tea. Henry's leaning over the counter, looking concerned. They leave her a moment before Mr Gold speaks again.
"Better?" he asks.
Emma nods. Henry thinks that she is the Emma of the book, their book, the one thing they have in common aside from blood and a pawnbroker. All those times when she had imagined that she was that tiny heroine all grown up…
Believe, Miss Swan.
Do you believe in fairy tales?
"Do you like fairy tales, Emma?" Henry ventures.
"I love them," she says. "I have a book just like yours."
"So you know about Emma?"
She nods, and Henry grins.
"Storybrooke is cursed," he says, leaning into Emma's ear. "When the curse hit the Fairy Tale land, all the people were transported here, they just can't remember. No one can leave unless Regina lets them, like she let Mr Gold out to get me. No one can come in, either, until Emma – you – comes back in her twenty-eighth year. That's why Rumpelstiltskin wanted to know her name, so that he could keep an eye on her, and make sure she could get back and break the curse." He pauses. "How old are you?"
"Henry!" Mr Gold exclaims. "You can't ask a lady her age!"
"I'm twenty-eight," Emma murmurs. Suddenly, it all seems so real. Mr Gold leaving Storybrooke but having to be back before midnight. The book he left for her. And the fact she's here, in her twenty-eighth year, and she's Emma.
"You're saying everyone here in Storybrooke is a fairy tale character," she manages.
Henry nods.
"My teacher, Miss Blanchard, is Snow White. And Ruby from the diner is Red Riding Hood. And my mum's the Evil Queen." Emma can't help but raise an eyebrow. "And Mr Gold is…"
But Emma already knows. Emma's known for ten years, she just hadn't realised the significance until now. Mr Gold, who knew her name, who kept an eye on her and made sure, in his roundabout way, that she got to Storybrooke. She finishes Henry's sentence for him.
"Rumpelstiltskin."