Belle stood in front of her front door as her friends got their jackets on. She'd been skyping with Ruby, Mary Margaret, and Emma since she had left Storybrooke, but recently she'd been talking a fair bit about a certain someone and her friends were determined to meet him. They had decided to use the last two weeks before school started again and Mary Margaret had to return to teach to visit Belle and see Hamish for themselves. They'd flown into London and then Inverness and Belle had driven them all up to Lochdubh. They had spent the previous day sleeping off their jet-lag, but now they were determined to meet the new man in Belle's life.
"Just - before we go, I need to tell you something. Hamish, he - just don't freak out okay? Even if he does look a bit . . . familiar." Belle nodded and then let them out of the house before locking up and leading the way to the pub. She had stopped by the police station earlier today while the girls were still asleep and told Hamish that her best friends were visiting and looking forward to meeting him. He hadn't seemed too intimidated by the thought and had agreed to meet her at the pub at 8.
Belle got the other women situated at a booth and then went to fetch drinks from Barney and Agnes, taking a moment to explain her friends to them. Agnes seemed thrilled that Belle and Hamish were serious enough to bring Belle's friends over from America and Belle blushed at the older woman's enthusiasm.
As she placed the drinks around the table, Belle looked up to see Hamish walk in. He seemed to have made something of an effort to dress up - he was wearing a lovely burgundy jumper under his leather jacket rather than his usual t-shirt and flannel as well as the slimmer cut, darker wash jeans she had persuaded him to buy. Given how they were sitting around the booth, none of the other women could see Hamish as she went over to fetch him.
She braced herself as she smiled at him and brought him in front of the table. "Girls, this is Police Constable Hamish Macbeth. Hamish, these are my best friends, Ruby Lucas, Mary Margaret Blanchard, and Emma Swan." She pointed them out as she named them and tried to ignore Emma choking slightly on her beer. Mary Margaret was just staring at Hamish, stunned, while Ruby glanced back and forth rapidly between Belle and Hamish.
She could feel Hamish shifting awkwardly beside her as the silence dragged on and, brave man that he was, he chose to break the silence. "Well. It's lovely ti meet ye lasses finally. Belle talks about ye all the time."
Mary Margaret, the training she received when she was still Snow White kicking in, was the first to break herself out of her stupor with a shake of her head. She smiled brightly at Hamish and offered him her hand, which he lifted to his lips. Mary Margaret blushed and Belle grinned at his attempts to charm her friends. They would probably work, he was good with the charm.
"It's very nice to meet you, Hamish. Belle has told us so much about you, and about this town. We had to come see everything for ourselves."
Hamish nodded happily at her, but seeing that the other two women hadn't managed to get themselves together yet, he opted to give them a minute while he went to get a drink. As Barney handed him his beer he watched the women who all now seemed to be in very intense conversation. Barney just shook his head in equal confusion and Hamish decided to wait in the relative safety near the bar for a bit longer. He had absolutely no idea what the problem was, because there certainly seemed to be a problem, but he knew Belle would be able to handle it a lot better than he could. They were her friends after all.
"Belle - " Ruby started.
Belle was glaring at them. "Did I not ask you NOT to freak out?"
"Well, sure," Emma growled, "But you can't just jump this on us and expect it not to have an effect! You couldn't have warned us a bit better than just 'he might look familiar'? In all this time you couldn't have sent us a picture? Something?"
Belle huffed. "Yeah, well, I didn't want you to blow it out of proportion."
Mary Margaret reached across the table to grab Belle's hands. "Honey. He looks exactly like Gold. Are you sure you're not just projecting?"
Belle yanked her hands away. "This is what I mean." She despised the tears that were leaking from her eyes as she continued. "Rum's been gone almost three years now. I couldn't stay in Storybrooke. You were all moving on, which is great!" She held up her hands. "Don't get me wrong. I am so happy for all of you. But I couldn't be there. With everyone who knew what I lost. So I came here. I wasn't - " she made some sort of strange noise between a chuckle and a sob. "I wasn't looking for love. But then Hamish was here. And you're right, he does look like him. But he's also different. He's his own man. A good man. And I don't feel . . . empty inside anymore. Not when I'm with him."
Ruby pulled Belle into her arms and Mary Margaret held her hands tighter. Belle couldn't help but notice they all had tears in their eyes, including Emma, though Belle knew the blonde would never admit to it. Belle sat up and wiped her face off.
"Look at us, we're being ridiculous." she smiled. "I am honestly happy. And not just because he looks like Rum."
They all managed to relax a bit after that, and when Hamish came back he was actually able to engage everyone in conversation of some sort.
Over the next week and a half Hamish saw a lot of Belle's friends. He still had no idea what had made them all so anxious that first night in the pub, and though they did talk to him it had taken them a few days to get over the tension that seemed to grip them whenever they saw him. He was determined to ask Belle about it, but he would wait until they had gone. In the meantime he took them on hikes through the hills and to a couple of the closer islands out in the Loch.
He learned that Emma, the only blonde among the four women, was actually a sheriff in the town Belle came from, Storybrooke, and they spent a fair amount of time discussing oddities that were inherent in policing a small population.
He learned that Mary Margaret, who was possibly the most polite person Hamish had ever come across, was a teacher and Hamish had taken all of the women to the school a couple of times to visit Esme and the children. Mary Margaret was more innately kind than anyone Hamish had known, including Belle even, and both women had laughed when he mentioned it.
Ruby was the most free-spirited of the four of them and she especially liked the various hiking trips Hamish organized.
Hamish was sad to see them go when they came to the pub to say their goodbyes before he and Belle drove them back to the airport in Inverness. As different as the three girls were from what his town was used to, Lochdubh had accepted them just as easily as it had accepted Belle. The town would be sad to see the backs of them.
The ride to Inverness had been easy enough, talk flowing naturally, and Belle was glad that her friends seemed to have accepted Hamish so completely. He stayed towards the entrance of the airport, hugging Mary Margaret and Ruby and shaking hands with Ruby, while Belle followed her friends to where they would be boarding. She gave each of them long hugs, ending with Emma.
When they pulled back from each other, Emma had tears in her eyes. "Will you - uh" she coughed. "Will you come home? For Christmas? The weather's not going to be much better in Maine than it is in Scotland, but uh - everyone misses you. Henry'd like to see you again. And -uh - Neal. He misses you too."
Belle's eyes welled with tears. She'd become fairly close to Neal in the years between his father's death and hr flight to Scotland. He'd gotten so little time with the man he was only starting to get to know again, and she was the strongest link he had to him. But he'd had his own family - Emma and Henry - to focus on. And Belle couldn't let herself be in the way of that.
But knowing he missed her . . . She thought of him almost as a son, even if she'd never had a chance to raise him. And she missed him a lot too. He was all that was left of his father.
Belle nodded quickly as tears started to fall down her cheeks. "Yeah." her voice was raspy with tears. "Yeah, I'll do that. I'll bring Hamish, if he's interested. So you might want to warn Neal."
Emma laughed harshly. "Yeah. I'll make sure I do that. You might want to warn Hamish though. Explain why everyone will be looking at him."
Belle nodded and smiled. "Deal."
She hugged her friends tightly again before they had to get on their plane and then stood waiting until it took off. Just as it started down the runway she felt arms come around her and she leaned back against Hamish's chest. She could feel how wet her face was as she watched the plane ascend into the sky. Hamish hugged her tightly and brushed the moisture off of her cheeks with his thumbs.
"Will you come to Maine with me, for Christmas?"
He nodded against her hair as he led her back out to her car, bundling her into the passenger seat, which was good, she wasn't in much of a state to drive at the moment.
"Absolutely, love."
She nodded and put her hand over his on the gear shift as she gave him a watery smile and leaned up to kiss him softly. "Thank you. Remind me when we get back to Lochdubh that I'll have to show you something first. A picture."