The sheriff was in a meditative mood when she entered his shop. Gold watched her looking around as he straightened and cleaned some of the displays, pretending not to pay any attention to her as she moved from one item to another.
The puppets (lost parents still awaiting their rescuer), a mobile of glass unicorns (Emma's own, if she only knew it), a clever little wind-up toy, a copper man that would have amused any child and amazed any adult – if they could only find the key.
So, Gold guessed, something about children was on her mind. Probably her son, Henry.
Nothing surprising, there. The only surprise was what had made her come to Gold, of all people, looking for answers.
"You had a kid, didn't you?" Emma said.
And he was right again.
And still taken by surprise. He hadn't seen that question coming.
Mr. Gold looked up from the silver plate he was polishing, mild surprise on his face, as if he were wondering what had gotten into the sheriff this time. "What makes you think that?"
"I listen. And, sometimes, you actually say something."
Yes, he did. And so did she.
He saw the memory as clearly as if it were playing on Emma's face, Graham's walkie-talkies. Gold giving them to her, telling them she could use them with her son. Because children grow up too soon.
And, then, you lose them.
Mr. Gold finished polishing the plate, then put it carefully back on its display on the store shelf, adjusting it so it was straight. "All right, then. I had a son."
"And he doesn't live around here, does he?"
"Hardly." He considered what to tell her and what not to tell her. It would be simple to say it was none of her business. And yet . . . .
"There's not much to it," he said. "We had a fight. Families do. He left. End of story."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"Haven't you ever tried to contact him?"
"No. He was very clear how he felt about that."
"If enough time's gone past –"
"It hasn't. Not for him."
"What kind of fight was this?"
I sold my soul and became a monster, a creature parents warned their children about and tried to ward their homes against. I saw the terror in my own son's eyes when I stood over the fresh killed bodies of the men who would have taken him from me, their blood still hot on my hands, and felt nothing but satisfaction at a job well done.
Things went downhill from there . . . .
No, he would probably not tell her that. "It was nothing so very dramatic, Miss Swann. We'd been through some difficult times. I didn't always have –" he waved a hand, letting her assume he meant the shop, nearly all of Storybrooke, and a good chunk of Maine. No reason to go into details of how his fortunes had changed, was there? "—all this. When I did have it, I suppose I neglected him. Tried to give him things instead of time, the usual mistakes."
There had been many gifts, magic swords, enchanted armor, jewels that conjured storms or revealed secrets. Bae left most of them behind. He'd already learned something about the costs of magic, though it was his father, not Bae, who bore the price of them.
But there had been one Bae loved, a magic cloak made of red and gold feathers.
Perhaps, because his father had made this one himself, spinning it from gold and flame, not bargained for, as he had the others. He liked to think that was the reason. When Bae threw it on, he became a firebird, streaking through the sky.
Perhaps, Bae had only loved the freedom, the escape it gave him.
"There was a man who was very badly in debt to me. And, yes," he let the sarcasm drip into his voice. "I was a soulless monster who could care less about his pleas and excuses and all the rest of it." The man, without any prompting from Rumpelstiltskin, had offered his only child. It was the first time anyone had tried to make such a deal with him. He thought he had accepted more from surprise than anything else.
"But, it seems, this man had a daughter – I would even say a beautiful daughter – who was about the same age as my son.
"He wanted to help her. I caught him taking – well, never mind." Let Emma think his son had tried to steal from him. In a way he had, helping the girl break her contract and escape back to the family that had already sold her once.
Bae hadn't cared for his father's gifts but he had paid attention. There had been some terrible, magical barriers Rumpelstilskin had had to fight his way through, catching up with the boy. Not to mention some perfectly good charms gone and wasted.
And, in the end, Bae had sent the girl running on ahead while he stood to face his father. As if he really were a demon and Bae the bold hero who would stop him or die trying.
As if (Mr. Gold remembered the bleak look in Bae's eyes) he expected his father to make him die trying.
Maybe he should have taken him up on it, a battle royale between hero and monster. Maybe fighting would have accomplished something, let Bae strike at all the things he feared that his father had become.
And let the boy survive.
Whole.
Unhurt.
Let him see in no uncertain terms that his father wouldn't harm him.
Ever.
He wouldn't have, would he? He couldn't, not to Bae.
Letting Bae fight and not fighting back, it might have saved something between them.
If he could have done it. If he could have trusted himself to do it.
Talking certainly hadn't helped.
"The end of it was we argued," Mr. Gold said. "I told him she was just using him, probably called her a few foul names. All of them true. Not that he believed me. And he had a few names of his own for me. I told him – in the end, I told him I never wanted to see his face again till he was ready to apologize. Oh, and admit I was right. He stormed out. I haven't seen him since."
Bae had stood there in the red and gold cloak, ready to wrap it around himself and at least try to fly away when his father tried to kill him.
Mr. Gold remembered the terror in Bae's eyes when his son saw him grinning over the men he'd just killed. He'd been a lone man armed with nothing but a dagger. They'd worn chain mail and carried swords and shields.
Gold had slit them open like so much overripe fruit.
And, yes, he remembered imagining doing the same to Bae.
He remembered part of him hungering for it.
Angry as he'd been that day, he'd known there was a reason for his son to look at him that way.
Knowing made him even angrier.
So, he cast a spell, wrapping the cloak around his boy. He'd cursed him to fly off in that shape.
Be rootless, be homeless, he'd said. If you would find a home among humanity, then lie to them, show them a false face. For the moment you use any of the gifts I have given you, whether magic or knowledge, you will be driven out again. Do this till you can admit you were wrong. That all a girl like that ever wanted was what benefited her.
And you will apologize for what you've done.
For I won't see your face again till you're ready to do this.
So, Bae had wandered through the world, homeless, living a lie or driven away, never finding rest . . . .
Until he came home. Until he told his father he'd been right.
Oh, and apologized. He'd had to include that as part of the curse, hadn't he? Until Bae apologized.
And Gold had to add the very last part of the curse, I won't see your face again till you're ready to do this.
The curse had bound both of them. His son would not return.
And he couldn't find his son.
He had looked for him, once his anger cooled, searched frantically.
He found signs of him, places he had been.
But never the boy himself.
At last, desperate, he'd gone in disguise to the girl Bae had saved.
True love's kiss could break any curse.
He'd told Bae she didn't love him, she was only using him.
Maybe he'd been right
But, maybe, he hoped, he'd been wrong.
If he'd been wrong, he'd waited too long to find her. She had already given her heart to another. The wedding day was set.
He should have cursed her, he supposed, cursed her and her family and all her line for eternity.
But . . . it was so useless.
Threats, pleas, bribes, he knew he could find a way to make the girl swear to rescue Bae or die trying – and all she could do was die trying.
Whether she wanted to or not – and the demon Gold had become knew a thousand ways to make her more desperate to do what he wanted than she was to draw her next breath – she'd already lost the power to help him.
Bae had given everything to save her.
He left her in peace.
"Haven't you ever tried to fix things?"
"If I have, I haven't tried hard enough. You may not like hearing this, Miss Swann, but, sometimes, all you can do is wait for people to come home."
The sheriff left shortly after that. He didn't know if he'd told her what she needed to hear.
Sometimes, all you can do is wait for people to come home.
Even when you know they never will.