She's not sure when everything changed. Maybe it was when her mother died. Maybe it was when her father turned to gambling and then drink, when their life collapsed around them. Maybe it was when she left the university, their money dried up, nothing more available for tuition. She can't pinpoint the moment, but it's there. Lurking. Hiding in the back of her mind. The elephant in the room, as it were. If she believed that elephants could fit into a room, that is.
She doesn't dream anymore.
Her world has been reduced to getting by. She doesn't beg on the streets, so there's that much at least. But she takes whatever job is offered to her, taking meager pay in exchange for often back-breaking work. She has to live. She has to eat.
She no longer imagines that someday she'll get out of the rut she fell into, that she'll go back to school. Or better, that she'll write the novel she's always imagined writing. She doesn't even have a computer these days, sold to buy herself a hotel room for a night and a meal. She has an old manual typewriter. It's beaten up, the lettering of the company flaking off, the platen worn out, the ink drying up.
Not that it matters.
She hasn't used it in years. She lugs the thing with her wherever she goes, always tells herself she'll write. She has plenty to use as fodder for a novel these days. The poor, the downtrodden, the destitute. She sees their stories, but she no longer hears them. She's one of them, just another poor person floating along on choppy seas and wondering, somewhere deep in the back of her mind, when it will be her turn.
She lands in a little town called Storybrooke in the middle of a Maine winter storm. Nor'easter, the locals call it as she hunkers down in a small diner. Granny, the proprietor, offers her a menu but she shakes her head, asks for a cup of coffee. Coffee is usually the cheapest. No cream, no sugar. Just something to warm her bones and give her the feeling that there's something in her belly.
A person can't live on coffee alone and she's thankful when the waitress, apparently Granny's granddaughter, offers up some crackers with a sympathetic smile. "Do you have a place to stay?" she asks as she sits down and Belle wonders how she manages to look so graceful in the high heels and tight skirt. She remembers wearing such heels…once. It was her prom and she felt she should dress in the sky high heels. She almost broke her ankle.
She'd laugh at the memory, but she's not sure the last time she really laughed.
She watches the woman for a moment, Ruby her name tag says, and finally shakes her head.
"We're an…"
"Inn," Belle completes the thought and it's strange how her voice feels so rusty.
"Right…it's right there on the sign."
"I have no money," Belle quickly says and Ruby gives her a smile that she knows is supposed to be sympathy and yet doesn't quite feel that way to Belle. No one knows what to say. And how does she tell them that she did have money…once. Middle class. How her father hated those words when she was younger. He aspired to more. But her mother's death sent him spiraling down, deep into a depression that he's never managed to crawl his way out of.
When was the last time she saw him anyway?
She's not sure it even matters. He barely recognized her, barely acknowledged her.
Ruby leaves her then, leaves her to her coffee and her dark thoughts. She returns a few times and fills up the cup, leaves a few crackers as if that's what Belle ordered for her meal. She knows she doesn't expect a tip and yet she goes out of her way anyway.
It's almost closing time and Belle can almost feel the wind and the cold. She's not sure if Storybrooke even has a women's shelter. It's a small town. But she's noticed the boarded up library and thinks she might be able to pry off a board and sneak in there. Surely no one would notice. When she gets up to pay, Ruby waves the money away. "Are you sure…" the waitress asks and Belle hates the tentative note to her voice. People aren't used to dealing with the homeless, especially not on their own turf. So she just smiles at the other woman and slips out the door.
The cold hits her hard, driving snow and ice into her bare face. She pulls her threadbare coat tighter around herself and yanks her hat down over her ears. The library isn't far at least and she desperately hopes that the boards are a bit loose. It looks like it's not been used in years and she knows that nails rust, wood warps and weakens. It's not the first time she's broken into a dilapidated building. She's sure it won't be the last.
She glances around herself as she steps around the back of the library. There's no one there to see her. Of course there isn't. The wind is picking up and the snow comes harder. It's difficult to see a few feet in front of her, much less several feet down the road.
When she gets to one of the boarded up windows that she can reach, she's relieved to note that the board comes off easily. Almost too easily, really.
Someone else has been there.
Someone else has broken in.
She's not sure if they're there now. There are no footprints in the snow, but with the way it's coming down it wouldn't take long for them to be swallowed up in the storm. She hesitates for only a moment before prying the board off and tossing her bag inside. She follows a moment later.
The silence inside seems almost absolute. After the howling winds and the driving snow, it's quiet enough for her to hear her heartbeat in her ears. But most importantly it's warm inside. Well, not warm like a house with heat and electricity. But warm like a place that's at least well-insulated against the bitter winter wind.
She reaches into her bag for her flashlight and is just about to turn it on and take a step inside when she hears it. A click. Just one click. She freezes in place.
Another click.
And then two more.
It takes her a few more moments of frozen indecision to realize she recognizes the noise. "Hello?" The word is quickly absorbed into the room around her. She says it again, a little louder.
The clicking noise stops. She steps further into the dark library. There's another noise, the scraping of a chair against the ground, someone trying to be furtive and failing.
"Please I mean you no harm." She can well imagine the person there in the library is in much the same situation as she is. She continues forward, flashlight shining around her until she stumbles across him. He's seated at a table and she can see the source of the noise sitting in front of him, now silent.
"How did you know I was here?" The man's voice is rusty with disuse and she shines her flashlight across him. Dark hair, cut short and ragged, at least a week's worth of unshaven beard. She'd be frightened of him if he didn't look so beaten down.
"I didn't…" she starts to say.
"But you…"
"I'm here for the same reason you are." The last is almost a question, but she knows the answer.
The man is silent for a moment before he speaks. "I'm August. Welcome to my home." There's a sort of sarcasm hidden in those words.
She lets out the breath she didn't quite realize she was holding. "Belle. Belle French. I…"
"No need to explain," he says quickly. "I understand."
And he does understand. The next couple week pass in a blur. Belle goes out about the town during the day, contemplates jobs though it appears there are none. Ruby, the waitress at the diner, gives her strange looks of askance and Belle knows she wonders where she's spending the nights.
August is kind to her. He's a writer, like her, spending most of this time with a flashlight lighting up a small area near his typewriter. He swears someday he's going to be a famous novelist and this is just the bad times before he's well known and rich, before he travels the world. But she sees the way he aimlessly hits the keys on the typewriter and more often than not the paper ends up in the trash bin.
She sometimes imagines she sits down next to him, pulls out her own old portable machine, and gets to work too. But she doesn't. It's hidden underneath one of the desks and she only reaches into the bag when she curls up on one of the far too small sofas to sleep. She touches it almost as reassurance. Maybe someday. When the world isn't so dark and she's not quite so trapped. But for now she walks the town, peering in the windows of stores, sometimes wandering in to see if anyone might need help.
No one does.
Of course they don't.
That day she's peering into the window of the local antiques shop. She wants to go in, the place speaks to her in the way not much does these days. Belle loves antiques, old first edition books and furniture that would have stories to tell if only it could speak. But she also knows she doesn't belong in such a place. Her boots are a little muddy from leaping out of the library window. The thin coat she wraps around herself is a little damp. She's bedraggled but alive.
"Can I do something for you?"
She jumps back with a slight yelp at the sound of the very cultured voice coming from close to her left. "I…" she starts to say.
Cultured, definitely. He's dressed in a suit that fits him like it was tailored for him. It probably was, Belle. Armani or one of those other fancy brands she couldn't imagine touching much less having the money to buy. His eyes are dark and she's almost sure she sees the corner of his mouth quirk up in a smile. But it's gone in an instant.
He looks her up and down and his lips tighten just slightly. "I doubt you could afford anything in my shop." She wants to crawl under a rock at the words. He's right, of course. She probably couldn't afford to walk into the place.
"Mr. Gold, I assume," she responds with.
"You would assume correctly, Miss…"
"Belle." For some reason she holds out her hand to him. "Belle French." He doesn't take it, just glances down at the appendage like it somehow offends him. She wants to shrink into herself at the withering look.
But she doesn't. Do the brave thing…
"Mr. Gold, the polite thing to do is to shake my hand."
"I have no interest in being polite," he shoots back. There's a sneer about his mouth as he speaks the words and Belle lets her hand drop slowly to her side.
"No." She cocks her head to the side as she says the word. "No I suppose you don't." There's something there, something in the way he watches her as she watches him. He may have everything…wealth, his antiques, his fancy suit. But she suspects there's something missing. There are lines at the corner of his mouth that show he frowns more than he smiles. She doesn't know him, can't even pretend she can get into his mind, but she knows one thing about him at least. His life is empty. She can see it in the hard glint of his eyes, the way his lips tighten almost imperceptibly as she watches him.
"Well, Mr. Gold, I suppose I'll take my leave then." She turns to go and is stopped by his hand griping her forearm.
"Where are you staying?" he says and there's a strange tone to his voice.
She turns back with a smile. "And you want to know because…" He says nothing, just stares at her. She doesn't pull away, but instead steps closer. "Are you concerned about me?"
"Of course not." The words come just a little too quick and he releases her suddenly.
She starts to say something else, reaches out a hand to touch his arm, but he quickly steps back inside his door and she's left with nothing more than the sound of the slam and the bells jingling in its wake. She'd laugh if the whole thing weren't so strange. She's seen the odd proprietor of the pawn shop watching her when he steps into Granny's.
August has warned her about him. Of course he has. Apparently he's a bit of a pariah in the town. He owns it, August tells her and really it's a good thing he's never caught them making their home inside the library. They have to sneak in from the back, just as Belle did that first time, making sure the wood is pulled in tight, undisturbed.
If Gold catches us, it's over, he warns time and time again.
He doesn't own the library, August has told her. It belongs to the town, shut down years ago by a mayor who doesn't care about such things. But Gold will make sure their little haven is destroyed before their very eyes if given half a chance.
She makes her way back toward their little home slowly that day, glancing back every once in awhile to the pawn shop. The curtain never moves. Mr. Gold isn't watching. She slips around the side of the library and launches herself through the window into the dark confines of what has become her home.
"Hey honey, I'm home," she says and is greeted by August's laugh. It's only been a few weeks and he's become like the brother she's never had. She knows he feels the same. They're both only children from fractured homes, both writers with dreams of someday hitting it big with a novel unlike anything the world has ever seen before.
August is somewhat further ahead of her, writing about his own reimagining of fairytales. He's twisted them, created a whole world of his own complete with a curse and an Evil Queen and Rumplestiltskin on the side of the heroes. He confided in her, late one night as they bounced ideas off each other, that he modeled his Rumplestiltskin after Gold. And now that she's met the man in question, she finds it a bit more amusing. He certainly seems to hoard treasures, hidden away in his pawn shop. And she supposes to someone like August, who towers over her own petite frame, Gold must seem pretty tiny.
"Back here!" August shouts. As if he's not always sitting in the back with his typewriter and a rigged up contraption pointing a flashlight at the keys.
"I met him!" she says as she rushes around the corner. She's not even sure why she's so excited, yet there it is. Meeting him had been…something she can't quite define. She'd prefer not to, really.
"Met who?" August says and he doesn't even look up from the typewriter.
"Him. Your Rumplestiltskin."
That gets his attention. "You met Mr. Gold?" She nods. "And you lived to tell about it?"
She rolls her eyes. August is nothing if not dramatic. His "writer flair" he calls it. "He wanted to know where I'm staying…" Her voice trails off as August leaps up and faces her.
"He didn't follow you here…"
"No."
"Are you…"
"Yes I'm sure. He went back into his shop and that was the last I saw of him. I swear." She trails off there as August cocks his head slightly to the side. "What?"
"You like him." August blinks once or twice as he watches her.
"What? No…"
"You do. I can see it all over your face." She's about to protest, even though she can feel the truth of those words. He was…intriguing. She supposes that's the best word, really. He was sharp with her, unkind, but there was something else hidden behind those dark eyes. Just a glint of it there before he slammed the door between them.
"August…"
"Oh my gosh! That's it!" And he turns from her, his fingers hitting the keyboard in a flurry of tapping.
"What's it?"she responds with, but he's not paying attention to her anymore. He's off in his own little world. But Belle hears snippets of his muttering. Love interest…Beauty and the beast…Yes…
She retreats to her own notebook where she's been writing random bits of things. Some prose, some poetry, all pretty awful if she's going to be totally honest with herself. She hasn't written anything good in ages. She can't remember the last time she put pen to paper and the words flowed.
She stares at the empty page and then finally tosses the pen at the floor. Another wasted day. She might as well go to bed. She gets more accomplished in her dreams than she does when awake.
He stares at the newspaper clipping and he's sure that the words will change, become what they should be.
Has been…
Washed up…
Haven't had so much as a minor arrangement out of him in years…
He was once the darling of the music world. Composer, conductor. He owned the world. Music flowed from his fingertips, straight from his brain. He had been compared to Beethoven in the fiery nature of his compositions, anger and frustration pouring forth at equal turns with love and sadness; had been compared to Berlioz in his use of colors. His favorite comparison was to Mozart of course. Not that his music resembled the master composer's in any way. But that it came so easily, Symphonies and Concerti flying out so fast the world was left reeling.
And then it all…just stopped. He sat down one day to start the next work. A Sonata, he remembers. Violin and Piano. Small, intimate, a conversation between two equal partners. And the music was gone. Just like that. He couldn't feel it, couldn't sense it.
His wife, the violinist in question, left him less than a year later. What good was a washed up old has-been when there was younger blood. She took up with a one-handed trumpet player. Of all the damned things in the world, a trumpet player. He had, from all accounts, lost a hand in an accident of his own making. But it didn't stop him from playing. Or from cashing in on the fame. Captain Hook, he had named himself and somehow made it work, strutting out onto stage in leather and eyeliner and a smoldering sexuality that even Gold couldn't deny.
Not that he hadn't tried.
But the truth was that Gold was small and old and a nothing.
He had eventually sold their place and found himself in the tiny town of Storybrooke Maine. He wasn't even sure why there. It was just where he landed. There was a shop there, boarded up and unused for the better part of a decade. He turned it into a new career.
But sometimes…
Every once in awhile…
He sat down at the piano he had moved into his new house and stared at it. A betrayal of all he had once been, that piano. He'd sometimes bang his fist down on it, listen to the discordant notes as they faded into the creaking of the house, the harsh breath that was wrenched from him in the wake of his anger.
It's over…
He knows this. He hasn't felt the music in his veins in some half a dozen years.
Six? Seven?
Has it been so many?
He lives for little now, no wife, no friends, not even decent acquaintances. He bought up as much of the town as he could and they hate him for it. You're not one of us. He can see it behind every interaction and so he snarls at them and collects their rent and hides out in his pawn shop like the vampire of his own pathetic story.
Andrew Gold had once been the king of the world. Now he's just the prince of a tiny no-name town in the middle of nowhere Maine.
When Belle French departs that day and he retreats into his shop, he realizes one thing. He hasn't been touched in a very long time. Her hand coming out to squeeze his arm just before she turned and smartly walked away from the beast was more than just a surprise. It was…warm…it was…he doesn't even know how to define it.
For a moment he felt grounded.
And then she was gone.
He can't say he didn't spend the next couple days keeping an eye out for her. He goes to the diner more often than usual, but doesn't see her leaving the inn that's next to it. He looks out the window of the pawn shop a few times. Not that he thinks she'll make her way back there. He sees no sign of her.
He starts to wonder if she's not a figment of his imagination after all. New people don't come to Storybrooke very often, especially new people who are young and probably homeless. Who ends up in a tiny town in the middle of a harsh winter?
It's some three or four days later when he sees her again. He watches from out of his pawnshop window and if some of the townsfolk see him with the curtain open, stealing furtive glances out at the street, a sneer sends them running the other way. It's far too easy. He's never been a physically intimidating man, not with his short stature and especially not now that he needs the cane to get around, but that doesn't matter here. It's a backwater town full of backwater people.
Except Belle French.
For a moment it was like the sun had come out over the dark winter of his life, a small flicker of light in the ocean of darkness he's been drowning in.
And he needs that sun, he realizes. Realizes it even as he shut the door in her face and cut off the contact. What he needs and what he should have and can have are ultimately very different things. He deserves nothing and yet he wants, craves. So he watches for her.
And finally he's rewarded as he watches her hurry down the street in front of his shop. She pauses only briefly, turning to look at his shop as he quickly drops the curtain to avoid being seen by her. He peeks back out as she's turning away. She heads across the road and disappears between the library and the building next to it. It's an unexpected move and he finds himself grabbing his cane and pushing through the door without even thinking about it.
The road in front of his shop is icy and he maneuvers across it as quickly as possible, stepping into the snow on the other side with some relief. Snow is less slippery than the sometimes treacherous roads, where they plow down to the packed snow and ice below. Snow sticks and so he's able to make his way quicker around to the side, following her footsteps in the snow.
He wonders why no one has noticed them. Or if the rest of the town simply doesn't care. They're all snug in their beds, reveling in the sameness of their days. Belle French disrupts that in a very minor way and still they barely seem to register it. The tracks are an obvious change in their little town, but they're not enough to make a dent in the apathy that rules their world.
When he comes around the corner, he sees the her crawling into the library through a window and stops, stares. "And what exactly are you doing, Miss French?"
The woman in question lets out a small squeak and falls headlong into the library. A moment later he sees her peeking out of the boarded up window. "Mr. Gold," she says and her voice sounds a little bit breathless. "It's not what it looks like."
"Really then," he responds with, one eyebrow raised. "Because it looks like you're breaking into the library."
"I…" she starts to say and he's surprised to see a slight blush on her cheeks. It makes her all the more beautiful. "I'm not stealing."
"Of course not."
"I'm not. I would never do such a thing." He can hear the slight annoyance in her voice.
"I don't doubt that for a moment. But still, it does look like you're breaking into the library." Reasonable. He keeps his voice measured, eminently reasonable. His expression strays from neutral to a smirk. Give nothing away…
"Things are not always as they appear." Her voice is prim, proper, and for a moment he imagines her heading up the library, staying in town. He'll reopen it for her, the mayor be damned. She'll have a job, a home.
"No I suppose they're not. But still, this does seem like a call to the sheriff would be…"
"Oh please, no." Her voice turns frantic, her eyes wide. "I have nowhere else to stay." Her hand claps over her mouth after she says the last word and he realizes she didn't mean to reveal so much.
"You're living here?"
"I…No…of course not…" But her cheeks are bright red and he can't stop himself as he moves closer to the window.
"Really, Miss French?"
"Belle," she responds with and he's surprised to hear a slight hitch to her voice.
He raises one eyebrow.
"This is ridiculous." She throws her hands up in the air with the words. "Why don't you just come in and I'll…explain or something."
"Are you inviting me into your stolen home?"
"It's not stolen," she shoots back with. "I'm just…"
"Borrowing it?"
"Exactly." She nods emphatically with the word. "So why don't you just come in?" She pushes the board with her hand and makes a funny little motion with her other hand.
He says nothing for a moment and then finally raises the cane up so she can see it. She stares at it for a moment and he can see the slight pink tinge to her cheeks. He can't crawl up and over. He's not agile. Not that he would be even without the cane. Standing so close to her, with just the window separating them he's reminded more than ever that somewhere along the line he's become an old man. Greying hair, a few more wrinkles. He's no one's idea of a good catch and his ex-wife is all too happy to remind him of that every time he calls to speak to his son.
"I'm sorry," she says at last and he just nods.
"Good day then, Miss French." He turns to go. He hears her mutter something behind him but he doesn't turn back. He's almost sure he hears wait coming from her but he continues back around the side of the library.
He doesn't deserve her.
He wants her.
He knows this much at least. But who wants a washed up old composer that even the music world has rejected? She's young and vibrant and even if she's somehow fallen on hard times, she still has more going for her than Andrew Gold, has-been. And yet still…there's that warmth, that glint of something in her eyes as she talks to him, the soft smile that he can't get out of his head.
As he walks past the front doors of the library he realizes he has two choices.
He can keep going. Go back to his pawnshop. Close the door. Close her out. It's the coward's way but after his last failures it's what he's used to. He can still hear his ex-wife, violin in hand, demanding he stop being such a coward and just write again, dammit. As if it's that easy. As if he could simply shut off the voice in his head that says he's over, there's nothing left, the music has simply drained out and disappeared into the air around him, no longer his to command.
Or he could pull out the key to the library that he keeps on his key ring, just in case there's ever any reason to use it. He's never known why he keeps it. He hasn't gone in the library since it closed down. It's not his jurisdiction anyway, not part of the town that he owns. But he has the key. Just in case. And so he can step inside…and see where that takes him.
Nowhere, Gold…it will take you nowhere.
He pauses.
Stares at the doors.
Have they always looked so intimidating? Half in shadow as if they're the doors to another world and not just to a closed down library full of books no one will read.
I am not a brave man.
He steps toward the doors. The shadow of the overhang falls over him.
You're a coward.
He puts his hand on the doorknob. Pulls the key from his pocket.
You're nothing.
He glances around him. Checks to see if anyone is watching. He's alone on the street.
A has-been.
He inserts the key into the lock. His hand his shaking. He doesn't expect that, though it shouldn't surprise him, really.
Washed up.
The door clicks open and he slips inside, letting it shut behind him with a soft thud.
She's standing near the door when it opens and she finds herself releasing the breath she didn't realize she was holding.
"I was hoping you might change your mind." She's holding a flashlight and it illuminates the floor near her. His face is left in shadow and she wants to raise it to see his expression but she worries that might be too much like an interrogation. She's almost sure he's stepped outside his comfort zone.
She's stepping outside of hers. That much she knows.
"Why?" The word sounds just a little bit choked.
She lets out a somewhat throaty laugh. "You don't feel it?"
"Feel…"
"Oh God, am I the only one?" She can feel her face burning and she's almost ready to bolt. But she was so sure…
"I don't think you are." She almost misses the words.
They both are silent for a moment and then she turns away from him, shining the light out toward the stacks. "Follow me." She walks away and holds her breath.
The sound of his feet and the tapping of his cane starts up a moment later and she releases the breath. She's not sure she's ready for what comes next. Do the brave thing…Always those words, haunting her, driving her forward. Her life might have fallen into a shambles, but her mother's words are just always there. She promised, all those years ago, that she would be brave, even in the face of complete terror.
Even, she realizes, in the face of potential rejection, in the face of homelessness and aimlessness. She's held onto that all these years. Sometimes it's all she has left.
It's certainly all she has now.
She places her flashlight onto the side table and sets the lampshade that sits there on top of it. Making do with what you have. It's the name of the game when you have little money and resources. The batteries are rechargeable and she's able to make use of an outlet at Granny's to charge them. The lampshade was found in a dumpster, some old thing that someone had duct-taped together and finally discarded. A boon for her, really and it's better than nothing. The makeshift lamp allows her to read the books she finds languishing on the shelves in the library, allows her to write if the fancy strikes, which it doesn't often truth be told.
But it's hers.
And her world.
It's something.
"You're a writer?"
She turns back to Gold and sees his eyes focused on the typewriter she has sitting on the table next to her tiny couch.
"I used to be," she murmurs. It's more truth than she really wants to admit.
He makes a small noise in the back of his throat and she waits for him to look at her before offering him a look of askance. "I write…" A pause. He clears his throat, licks his lips. She's fascinating by that tongue as it comes to swipe along his upper lip. "I wrote, at least. Music…"
"You're a composer?"
"Was," he answers with. "I was. At one point."
Those are words she knows all too well. She was a writer. At one point. One novel to her name. A small publication, a small readership. Not enough to live on but a start. Then it all went to hell and she lost it. Lost every damned word. "I understand," she manages to get out and reaches out a hand toward him. "May I?" He nods and she takes his hand in hers.
It's warm, real. And when he sits next to her she's never been quite so sure of anything in the world. Her other hand comes up to touch his face. Softly, almost as if she's afraid she'll startle him. She doesn't, though. He leans into the touch and there's a look of hunger on his face.
"You've been alone a long time." It's not a question. There's no need to question it. She knows.
"Yes."
"I have too." Her voice is soft. It's a confession she never thought to make. She's been alone for years, drifting from place to place. She has no real family, just her father who is either too drunk to care or in rehab. She's lost track of her friends. It's hard to keep up when you have no means of connection. Her last relationship is so far behind her she barely remembers what it's like to be with someone.
But this. This feels right and she doesn't even know why. She just knows you don't question fate. And so she does the brave thing. She releases the hand she's holding and tangles her hands in his hair, drawing his mouth toward hers.
It's messy and awkward at first. He doesn't kiss her back. Just stills beneath her, his lips soft but unmoving. For a moment she's sure she's made a terrible mistake, miscalculated, saw something that wasn't there, felt something that wasn't there. But then his mouth slants over hers and he's kissing her back and it's like she's finally come home.
How did she not know this was missing from her life?
He's kissing her like he's a dying man, like she's the only thing keeping him afloat in the sea he's been drowning with. When he pulls away, he says her name like it's a prayer.
"I don't even know your name," she responds with and she can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it. They just met. And it doesn't even matter. It just feels right.
"Andrew," he says and she has no time to even think before he's drawing her into another kiss. Her hands tangle in his hair again for a moment. It's soft, the strands like silk through her fingers. His hands are rubbing circles on her back, slowly lowering until he reaches the edge of her shirt. He pauses there, drawing back slightly as he opens his eyes to meet hers.
"Yes," she says. No need for the question. She knows what he's asking.
From there everything seems to move so fast, too fast. Her head is spinning. His hand is touching the skin of her stomach, running along her ribcage, closing over her breast. His thumb caresses her nipple and even through her bra it's almost too much. She lets out a ragged moan at the feeling.
Her hands have strayed to his shoulders, pushing off the suit jacket he's still wearing, attempting to undo his tie. He has to help her. Her hands are shaking, frustrated. He does it easily, a practiced move for him. She pulls her shirt over her head, undoes the clasp on her bra and finds herself completely charmed by the look on his face as he reaches up one hand to touch her.
Reverent.
Like he's never seen anything more beautiful.
She somehow manages to undo the buttons on his shirt but can't get it over his shoulders before he's pulling her back to him. Another kiss, hands everywhere. It's all feeling, no thinking. She's never felt so alive, so real before. As if the world was all in black and white and is finally in color.
She shifts, straddles him. The skirt she's wearing rides up and she's so thankful she's wearing that because his hand comes up to touch her bare thigh, running up closer to where she wants him. They kiss, harsh, all teeth and tongue and her hands tugging at his hair. "I need you," she mutters against his lips as they break apart briefly and he just nods. His lips are parted and she leans down to kiss him again as she lifts herself up, tugging her panties down off one leg and then the other, tossing them behind her.
His hand finds her then, cups her. "God," he mutters and she gasps as he draws a finger through the wetness that has pooled there.
"I need you," she says again and her voice has turned husky, dark with a need she didn't know she had. She's reaching for the button of his pants and undoing it, unzipping them, freeing him from the confines. He feels hot and heavy and perfect in her hand. "Condom?" she asks. She hasn't thought ahead and she almost curses that. She has none on her, couldn't afford them even if she wanted to. Birth control has been out of the question. Homeless women do not have access to such things. And so she hopes…
"Vasectomy," he mutters and she sends thanks to whatever God might be listening as she sinks down on him. And she has to pause there, flush against him. He's not particularly large, not overly so at least, but it's been a long time and she feels stretched and full in a way she hasn't ever felt.
It feels right.
Like this was where she was meant to be, fate finally bringing her to the place she needs to be, to the person she needs to be with.
And then she moves, raising herself up and lowering again. He moves with her, thrusting up into her as she sets a slow pace. Her hands are on the small couch they're sitting on. His hands are on her waist, keeping her steady, keeping them connected as he thrusts into her. When she speeds up, he's right there with her, and when her body starts to tighten, it's like he knows.
"So close," she manages to get out.
His hand comes up to touch her just above where they're joined and she's lost. Her climax rips through her and she almost screams with it. He's with her there just a moment later, driving up into her hard as his hands at her hips hold her flush against him.
And then she's slumping forward, her head coming to rest on his shoulder, exhausted, barely able to breathe.
"That was…" he starts to say, but can't seem to get any further.
"Yeah," is all she manages to respond with. They fall silent, the only sound in the library that of their slow regaining of their breaths. And then… "Andrew Gold."
"Yes…"
"The composer," she murmurs and she tilts his face up to look at her. "Andrew Gold the composer. I know you."
"I'd say you do." She's surprised at the humor lacing the words.
"No…I mean…I know you. I know your music."
His eyebrows shoot up. "You…"
"Yes." And she laughs. For the pure joy of it. Andrew Gold. She remembers hearing his music so very long ago. Her mother had recordings of his first two Symphonies, his piano music. When she first started writing she often imagined writing the libretto for one of his works. "Have you ever thought about writing an opera?"
He says nothing at first and for a moment she wants to take it back. But then he smiles and it might be her favorite new sight in the world. "For you, I think I could do anything."
She leans down to kiss him when she hears it. A small scrape of sound, the thud of boots against the carpet.
"Hi honey I'm home!" comes the voice from the other room.
"Who the hell is that?" Gold asks.
Belle gives him a sheepish look. "August."
"August Booth?"
"He's like a brother to me," she mutters.
"A brother who's about to…"
"Belle!" August says as he comes around the corner. She's still clinging to Gold, her shirt off, skirt bunched up around her thighs. "Oh God I did not need to see that!" August is gone before she can even say anything else. There will be explanations to be had, she's sure of it.
"Well, that was…"
"Yes." She leans down and kisses him, still amazed that he's still there. That he's real. That this is real. "But we should talk to him."
"So he can give me the talk about if I ever hurt his sister?"
She can't quite imagine August ever doing such a thing. He's not really her brother after all, and she's known him scarcely longer than she's known Gold. But she and August have grown close in that short time, living on their wits and what little charity they can find. "No," she says with a laugh. "He has this great story he's working on. I think you might like it."
She feels ideas flowing, words coming through and she can see from the somewhat stunned look on Gold's face and the twitching in his fingers that he feels it too. The creativity, the dreams, the life. It's all coming back to her. And the future looks brighter than she ever could have imagined.