A/N: I wanted to kind of play around with Lacey, and make her more dimensional than they did on the show. I want to make her more than just a sexed up lush. If you're not feeling that I totally understand. This is an AU where Belle was never locked up through the first season and as the curse weakens so does her fake personality. I'm sure it's been done 100 times before, but I wanted to do it again. :)
Lacey knew it was coming. Her boss had warned her over and over against coming in drunk to work, and every night she did it anyway. Some nights she could hide it and stand at the podium and take people to their seats and no one was any wiser, but some nights she was too agitated, too riled up to do her job, and she caused a scene and her boss gave her another warning to stop coming in after drinking. She needed the job if she didn't want to go back and work for her father at his flower shop, but she couldn't seem to get her drinking under control, either. Her problem, she knew, was that she didn't want to. She was self-aware, watching the damage that she caused, and part of her really regretted it, but a larger part, the dominant part, refused to stop.
"Lacey," her boss sighed from inside his cramped office, "We've had this talk before."
"I need this job," she blurted out, swaying a little. She let out a small hiccup and clamped her hand over her mouth as her boss rubbed his eyes.
"I've given you so many chances, and I'm trying to run a business here. You are bad for business, Lacey."
She opened her mouth to retort, but nothing came out. She just stood there with her mouth gaping, swaying slightly in her tall heels. She was not a people person and they both knew it. She couldn't even remember why she had wanted this job. She knew she couldn't argue her way out of trouble this time.
"I have to let you go. I- I know you can't go back to your dads...so...if you need a reference..." he trailed off, uncertain.
"Don't worry about it," she said, turning on her heel, trying to make a graceful exit, but instead stumbling towards the door. She caught herself on the door frame and was careful as she walked out into the cool night air. She paused, directionless for a moment. Should she go back to her apartment and sleep off her bad night? It was tempting, but she wasn't ready to face the emotions that came from losing the only job she could remember having, outside of her father's shop. She began walking, instead, towards her favorite bar. The Rabbit Hole would medicate her with whiskey until she forgot everything, including her own name. Alcohol was easy; it was a friend that demanded nothing from her and gave her momentary happiness.
Overhead, as she walked, the power lines sparked for a second, and in the distance she heard a car door slam, but she paid no attention to it. Storybrooke was the most harmless town on the face of the planet. She had no idea, as she walked the same path, that she had done it for twenty-eight years on repeat. Tonight was different, a stranger had come to town and was about breathe life into the inhabitants since they had been cursed into this existence. It wouldn't have mattered if she had known. She was focused the moment she walked in, ready to forget everything, one last time.
Lacey w oke up the next morning to sunshine and a pounding headache. She was in the clothes she had worn the night before and reeked of smoke and sweat. Her thick, brown curls were tangled in her bracelet, her make up smudged down her cheeks. She sighed, ripping her hair out of her jewelery quickly before hoisting herself up on her disheveled bed. She kicked off her shoes before pulling her knees up to her face and resting her chin there. Unemployed. She barely had enough money to cover rent working forty hours a week for her shoebox, studio apartment. Apartment was a generous term, in her opinion, she thought as she looked around at the four hundred square feet surrounding. More disheartening was that everything she owned fit neatly into it. Her bed was shoved into the furthest corner underneath a window, the kitchen directly across from her bed (just a sink and a stove with two burners with an oven underneath). There was closet behind the door that contained all her clothes, and a small bathroom across from that closet. She had rented it when she left her fathers at the age of seventeen from the landlord, a man she had never spoken to since she gave him the deposit. She always slid her rent under his door in a white envelope, mostly on time, and she never heard from him. She would be safe for another month here, but then what? She didn't want to think about it.
After a quick shower, Lacey was dressed and unsure of where to go. She didn't have a job anymore, and she really couldn't afford to be spending her rent money on alcohol, as much as she wanted to. She was going to have to face the day sober, a thought that terrified her. Sobriety came with too many feelings about her life in general, feelings she was ill equipped to deal with. Still. She hoped to find a job quickly so she could go back to living her life the way that she preferred.
She made her way into Granny's, a local diner than was bustling with the breakfast crowd. She slid into a booth and waited for Ruby to come over. "What can I getcha?" Ruby asked, shifting her weight from one hip to the other. Lacey and Ruby knew each other, but rarely spent time with each other. They ran in the same crowds but Ruby preferred men and Lacey preferred drinking.
"Just coffee, today," she said. "Oh! And a paper!"
Ruby smiled and sauntered off while Lacey sat there, staring blankly at the booth in front of her, willing to keep the thoughts out of her head. Ruby came back with coffee, a paper, and questions.
"What do you need a paper for?"
"I need a job," she said, flipping it open. She expected Ruby to leave, but the leggy brunette stayed.
"Have you talked to Mr. Gold?"
Lacey blinked. "Why would I do that?"
"He's looking for a librarian."
"A what? Isn't the library part of the government?" Lacey asked, setting the paper down to stare at Ruby.
"See. Right here." Ruby pointed a finger at a large ad in the Help Wanted section. Sure enough, there was an ad for a librarian and the instructions to see Mr. Gold if interested. Belle frowned.
"I would be a terrible librarian."
Ruby shrugged. "No one goes there anyway."
Belle finished her coffee while looking over the other ads, but she didn't feel qualified for anything else. She didn't have a college education and had barely graduated high school. What she did have was. miraculously, a solid job history. Besides, she reasoned, Ruby was right. The library had been closed for years, for as long as she remembered. If Gold was really reopening it, it would need a lot of work, which meant a quiet place to drink without someone constantly supervising her. She was also pretty unafraid of Gold, mostly by virtue of never having spoken to him once in her life.
She tossed down the last few dollars of her disposal income and headed off to Gold's Pawn Shop, resolved to at least ask. She knew she didn't look like librarian material in a pair of tight, ripped up jeans, tall heels, and a thin, clingy sweater. Her hair was in a messy bun and she was sure she looked as bad as she felt but she shoved those thoughts aside.
She walked into Gold's shop for the first time in her life, doing her best to keep her mind blank. She surveyed the space with little interest. She was here for a specific purpose, and other people's trinkets meant very little to her. Gold came out from behind a curtain moments later with a look on his face she could only describe as shock.
"Um...Mr. Gold?" She asked, suddenly unsure of herself. "I'm here about a job..."
"Job?" He echoed. Was this the man that everyone was so afraid of? She thought he seemed a little confused. Certainly not terrifying.
"A job," she repeated, setting her paper down on the counter. She pointed at the librarian position. "For the librarian. I know I'm not really qualified but-"
"Of course you are." He was staring at her like he had seen her before, which was not possible. They had never met, as far as she could remember...although, it occurred to her the could have had a run in during one of her many drinking binges. She narrowed her eyes.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes. Of course." He straightened his tie, a hard look coming over his face. It was a little unsettling, and for some reason, attractive. "If you want the position, of course it's yours."
"Really? Just like that?"
"Just like that. It will need a bit of...sorting out. You'll be alone there for a long time, organizing and cataloging."
Alone. It was music to her ears. "That's fine," she responded, exhaling with relief. This was exactly what she hoped for. A place where she could drink in peace while still getting paid.
"The pay isn't great," he continued, the hardness creeping into his voice. "Eleven dollars an hour."
Eleven dollars. Lacey was used to minimum wage. Eleven dollars sounded like heaven. "That's fine," she said, keeping her voice steady. She didn't want him to know he would be paying her more than she had ever made in her entire life.
"I want to reopen the library, Ms. French," he said, "I'm sure getting the building into shape will be no problem for you."
"Nope," she said with confidence, knowing that it would.
He pulled out some paperwork, typical job stuff, tax forms and the like, and a key. "This way."
She found his sudden turn around from confused older gentleman to powerful boss sexy in a way that she didn't exactly understand. Lacey had a thing for bad boys, men with dark pasts and ugly buried secrets. She found it easier to deal with their messed up lives than dealing with her own, and the drama that came with them was exciting. Watching Mr. Gold slide into cold indifference was right up her alley of emotional unavailability. Being her boss made him all the more attractive and dredged up other emotions that made her uncomfortable, mostly because she could not quite identify what they were. She decided to put her Lacey mask on and hide her insecurities in blatant sexuality, because dealing with anything uncomfortable was too much for her.
Gold handed her the key to the library and showed her how to unlock it. "Did you fix the clock?" She asked, noticing that it was working again. He stared at her again, that confused look creeping back on his face for a moment.
"It seems it sorted itself out," he said after she averted her gaze, unable to look at him.
"Weird."
Inside was dark and smelled dusty and unused. Books were stacked everywhere, on shelves, the floor, chairs and carts in what seemed to be no particular order. A thick layer of dust covered everything, large, almost comically so, cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and the windows were covered by large pieces of cardboard.
"When do you want to open this, again?" She asked, her façade slipping as surveyed the scene.
"A month."
A month. He was clearly delusional, among other things. Lacey blinked several times, wondering if she should just walk away not. This would not be the quiet space to drink in. This would be work. "A month?"
"Am I being unrealistic?" He asked, and despite the hardness of his words, his features were soft. She sighed, and lied because she needed the job.
"No. I'll get it done." Her mask was back on and she smiled confidently.
He showed her how to catalog the books and then he left with a curt good-bye. He seemed to be in a hurry, which was fine with her. Finally alone in the dirty library, she pushed a stack of books off a chair and fished a small bottle of alcohol out of her purse. She downed it like a shot, enjoying the burning sensation in her throat for a moment. She immediately felt better. Her life felt upside down and she needed something to stabilize it. Alcohol was really the only friend she ever had.
Lacey sighed, looking around. This was a mess. This whole idea was a mess. He obviously had no idea who she was or he never would have left her to this task. She picked up a book that she had previously shoved on the floor and opened it to read the cover flap. It had a review from someone she had never heard of, promising of daring adventures, far off lands, and a prince in disguise. She snapped it shut quickly and wiped the dust from it to look at the cover, which featured a large rose. She leaned down, resting her head on the book for a minute before sitting back up. Maybe life didn't always have to be blurred or blacked out, she thought for a moment. Maybe she could do something else. She stood up. Maybe she could do this.