True Love Wins Out

Note: This collection of scenes is for all the FOTS fans who asked what happened between Gold and Lacey while under the curse.

For anyone who has not read Freeze on the Stones, the premise is this: Rumplestiltskin and Belle marry four years before the curse in the Enchanted Forest and have a daughter (Renee in Storybrooke). Cora casts the curse instead of Regina, but Rumplestiltskin tries very hard to protect his wife and daughter from his jealous ex by writing a failsafe into the curse to keep them away from him. So, Lacey French is a single mother and struggling librarian, while Gold finds himself Cora's unwitting (and unhappy) boy-toy.

1.

She shouldn't be so nervous about this, and yet Lacey was. She and Gold had been seeing one another for—well, she didn't know how long, but it had been for quite some time. He was oddly insistent about keeping their relationship secret, but Lacey didn't care about that. Gold made her happy, for all his quiet sarcasm, biting sense of humor, and obsession with power. The town called him a monster, but Lacey knew him better than that. Beneath the hard exterior hid a good man, one who was gentle with her and always kind. He was shy, too, or had been in the beginning. Lacey would never call herself an expert seductress, but pushing their relationship forward had definitely been her responsibility; Gold had been almost timid in that regard. Now, however, she wanted to bring their relationship to yet another level.

"Are you sure you're all right with this?" she asked her lover (boyfriend seemed like such an inadequate word to describe how she felt about him) quietly as they approached the library doors.

"Of course I am, sweetheart," Gold replied, squeezing her hand with one of his tiny half-smiles. "I'm honored that you trust me this much, truly."

Lacey felt her own hesitant smile blossom. She had been with enough men to know that no one had ever set her on fire the way Gold did; there was something in the gentle way he touched her that sent her heart to racing. Oh, their relationship was far from perfect, particularly with Cora as an ever present shadow hanging over them, but she knew that she loved him. So, she squeezed his hand back.

"Renee is eager to meet you, actually."

"She is?" Gold stopped cold on the library steps, almost stumbling in his surprise.

Lacey leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. "I told her all about you, and how you helped me when she got sick," she explained. "And I told her that you tell wonderful stories."

"…I do?"

"I love it when you read to me," she told him honestly. "You've got a sexy voice."

"I hope you didn't tell your daughter that!" Gold stuttered, and Lacey laughed, pulling out her keys to unlock the library doors so that they could head up to her apartment.

"Of course not," she snickered. "Renee is three. She doesn't know what 'sexy' means. I just told her you tell the best stories."

"Oh. All right, then," her lover replied nervously, looking adorably off-balance.

Lacey gave him a cheeky smile and led him into the library, still holding his hand. She kept her pace reasonable, even though she wanted to rush up the stairs to make her butterflies go away. But she never let herself forget that Gold walked with a limp, a legacy of a car accident he'd told her very little about. But she knew that his wife bullied him into driving drunk, which had wound up destroying both their lives, leaving Gold with a crippling injury and killing their son. That same wife had left him not long afterwards, unwilling to live with a cripple and blaming him for their son's death, even if she had been the one who had left the boy in the car to die while she walked away without a scratch. Gold still had nightmares from the accident, almost as many as he did thanks to Cora, and Lacey was a little ashamed to admit that was part of the reason she was willing to trust him with Renee.

He loved children. Gold tried to hide that behind a diamond-hard exterior, but Lacey knew his secrets. She'd so rarely brought a boyfriend home to meet Renee—Tony had met her because he wouldn't stop dropping by, but Tony didn't count—and she'd always regretted doing so before. Gold, however, was special.

"Ready?" she asked him as they reached her door.

"If you are."

She grinned. "I am."

Unlocking the door, Lacey led him inside. As usual, Ashley Boyd was babysitting for her—Lacey didn't have a lot of money to spend on a babysitter, but Ashley was desperate enough that she never asked for much. Lacey didn't go out on many dates because she couldn't afford to leave Renee alone often, but now when she did, it was always with Gold. And if it makes him feel better if I pretend not to notice when he slips cash into my jacket pocket, I'm all right with that. I hate needing charity, but if it makes Renee's life better, I'll swallow my pride. Besides, knowing that Gold did it because he cared helped a lot.

"You're back early, Lacey," Ashley greeted her with a smile, walking into the tiny apartment's main room and stopping cold when she saw Gold. The heavily pregnant girl floundered for a moment, her smile turning upside down, and then continued weakly: "Renee's just got out of the bath. She's still awake and watching TV."

"That's fine, Ashley. Thank you," Lacey replied with a smile, reaching in her purse for the envelope containing her sitter's fee. "I paid you for the full four hours, even though we got back early."

"Thanks," the younger girl replied feelingly, and then fled with one last glance at Gold. Lacey waited for the door to close behind Ashley before turning to him with a smile.

"I think you scared her away, Gold."

Her lover shrugged. "I'm a difficult man to deal with. You know that."

"I think you don't try very hard," Lacey retorted. She always felt bolder with Gold; around other people, she was quiet and sometimes timid, but Gold made her feel strong. Maybe it was the way he looked at her, like she was the center of the universe. Or maybe it was the way she felt like she could do anything so long as she was with him. "Sometimes, I think you like it when people fear you."

But the last words were spoken lightly; she knew that her lover was more fragile than his outer veneer would suggest, and Lacey reached forward to toy with his tie as she teased him. Once he smiled, ever so slightly, she leaned in to kiss him gently. That made Gold melt a little, and then Lacey knew that now was the time to introduce her love to her daughter. He was no prince charming, Gold, but he was hers, and Lacey knew that he'd hit it off with Renee. So, she grabbed him by the hand and led him into the bedroom, where her tiny TV lived. Her three-year-old was engrossed in a sing-along show, but Renee turned to her with a sunny smile when she walked in.

"Mommy!"

Letting go of Gold, Lacey stepped forward to sweep up her daughter into her arms, cuddling her tightly for a moment. She was doing the right thing, wasn't she? Of course, her father would have told her that Gold was the worst type to bring home to meet her child, but Moe French had lost the right to tell her what to do when he'd thrown her out, pregnant and frightened, for refusing to give up her daughter. Her father hadn't helped her when Renee had been sick a year earlier, either, even though Lacey had abandoned her pride to beg him for assistance. Gold had helped, however, and that meant the world to Lacey.

"Mommy brought a special friend home to meet you," she told her daughter. "Do you remember me telling you about Mr. Gold?"

"Uh huh."

"Well, he came here to meet you. Are you all right with that?" she asked, knowing that her daughter had wanted to meet Gold for ages.

Brown eyes studied her, beautiful and round. Lacey had never been sure who her child's father was, but those eyes reminded her of someone she couldn't quite remember. Someone she saw only in her dreams. "Meet Gold? Yes!"

"He's here now," Lacey replied, turning so that her daughter could see the impeccably-dressed man standing in the doorway. He looked at Lacey awkwardly, obviously not sure if he should invite himself into her room or not. That thought almost made Lacey laugh, because she'd certainly been in his bedroom enough times. She'd never been able to stay the night, of course—not with Renee to come home to—but they'd had plenty of stolen moments together. But she was touched by his hesitation; it told her how much he cared for her.

"Down, Mommy!" Renee commanded, and Belle obliged her. Immediately, the three year old toddled over to Gold, looking up at him curiously.

"You is Gold?" she asked curiously.

"I am," he answered solemnly, lowering himself laboriously down to one knee in front of the little girl.

"Mommy likes Gold," was Renee's very serious response, and she seemed to study the slender man with a wisdom far beyond her years.

"And I like your Mommy," Gold said. "A lot."

"Okay. I like Gold," Lacey's daughter said, and that was that. "Up!"

Gold blinked in surprise as Lacey stood speechless; Renee hadn't liked any of Lacey's former flames, but she'd just hit it off with Gold within seconds. And he seemed touched by the toddler's sudden display of trust, carefully leaning his cane against the wall and obligingly picking her up. Lacey was only a little surprised to find that Gold knew exactly how to do that despite his limp; he was a clever man, and very self-sufficient for someone who was so crippled. She was still a little shocked when Renee immediately wrapped her arms around Gold's neck, making Lacey's lover smile.

"Like Gold," Renee repeated with a sunny smile, and for the first time she could remember, Lacey felt as if she had something almost like a family.

A/N: More to come! Please do let me know what you think. Up next: Gold helps out when Renee is sick.

Also, I'm open to prompts! Is there something you wondered about while reading FOTS? If so, let me know, and I'll see if I can't write it. :D