Gold stood in front of the door. He adjusted his tie, then his jacket sleeves, then his hair, then he realized he was stalling for time. Twenty-one years. He hadn't stepped foot in this room in twenty-one years. Last time he was in it he was with her. Belle
He spent twenty-one years avoiding it, leaving the the room exactly as it had been when he still had her. In his rage, he'd smashed up a good portion of his house, but that room lined with bookshelves remained untouched. He was only going in it because Granny offered him a large sum money for a grandfather clock, and the only one he owned sat in this library. It always ticked away at his minutes with Belle. If only he had known they'd be so limited.
He remembered that last day in this room. Belle's green dress all crumpled up on the floor in a pile with his three-piece suit. They'd laid entwined with each other on the tiny vintage couch with a scratchy floral cover on it. He buried his nose in her brown curls, smelling of roses and vanilla. He wrapped his hands around her from behind, and she placed her hands on top of his, snuggling into him.
He hadn't known at the time, but she was about to betray him. She left him for her husband.
She'd been married to Gaston when they met. The little librarian assured him that Gaston's fear of commitment meant they had an open marriage, and so she and Gold began their affair.
At first it was just about the sex. It was good. But quickly Gold realized how much he loved the way Belle's face lit up when she talked about the book she was reading. And he loved her quick wit and the way she fit in his arms like she was meant to be there and he just loved her. It didn't seem unreciprocated. Belle's face always lit up at the sight of him, and she treated his problems like her own. But they never spoke of love. Neither wanted to scare the other away.
Cowards, both of them.
One day she was in his arms and the next she was gone. She didn't return his calls or come in his shop for lunchtime. She even stopped working in the library. A little part of Gold always knew that she would inevitably leave him. He knew that she would realize Gaston was a better man and she would choose him over Gold. But when that day came, it stung Gold.
He kept to himself. His life became a monotonous routine of waking up, working in the shop, scaring tenants, going home, falling asleep, and repeating. For twenty-one years Gold lived alone with no friends and no family and certainly no women. Belle might have had another man in her life but Gold knew that she was the only woman for him. When a car crash left him crippled, he went through surgery and physical therapy alone. As he should be. He remembered the nurses wanted to call him by his first name, but he refused. The last one to use his first name had been Belle.
Gold took a deep breath, then placed his hand on the cool doorknob. Everything in the room had a thick sheet of dust over it, and even the light pouring in from the window seemed old. The room had always been Belle's favorite room in his house. It was probably because of the fireplace that stood on one wall, black firewood still set up.
The grandfather clock still worked, but coming face to face with the couch Gold and Belle had laid on so many times made him suddenly weak. He sank down on it. If he closed his eyes, he could picture her right there next to him. It would be as if she never left. But she did.
Gold laid down, but heard a crinkle of paper under him. He sat up. There was an envelope tucked between the cushions. "Rum", it said, in her scrawling handwriting.
He picked up the envelope with shaking fingers. He should just throw it out, throw it out like she threw out him. But instead he tore into it.
August 30, 1990
I've written to you a thousand times, Rum, and every time I had to begin with one and the same word, because it is the truest of all: "Beloved."
Beloved Rum, my beloved, distant Rum.
I've done something very stupid. I didn't tell you why I left you, and now I regret both things- having left you and not saying why.
Please read on. I didn't leave you because I didn't want to stay with you.
I wanted to- far more than what is happening to me instead.
Rum, I'm dying. Very soon- at Christmas, they predict.
I really wished you would hate me when I left.
I can see you shaking your head, Rum. But I wanted to do what love thought right, and doesn't it say do what is good for the other person? I thought it would be good if you forgot me in your rage. If you don't grieve, don't worry; don't know anything about my death. Move on.
But I was wrong. It won't work. I have to tell you what happened to me, to you, to us. It is both beautiful and terrible at the same time; it is too much for a short letter. We'll talk it all over when you get here.
That, then, is my request to you, Rum: come to me.
I'm so scared of dying.
But that can wait until you get here.
I love you.
Belle.
PS: If you do not want to come because your feelings aren't strong enough, I'll accept it. You owe me nothing, no compassion either.
PPS: The doctors won't let me travel anymore. Gaston knows I never loved him and is expecting you.
Gold dropped the letter, letting it flutter down to the floor. He reached for the nearest wastebasket- not emptied in twenty-one years and still containing used condoms- and vomited. His head spun.
All this time he thought she was happy with Gaston. But she was dead. And judging from that PPS, she was never even happy with Gaston.
He always knew he was an awful person, but somehow he was worse than he thought. When death came for Belle, she was scared. She was scared and sad and waiting for him. She'd suspected his feelings for her weren't strong enough to come to her in her time of need. He denied her her last dying wish.
She'd even written I love you. Fuck, he was such a fool.
Gold reread the letter, careful not to let his tears splash on the very paper she'd touched.
He pictured her, sick, weak, looking out a window waiting for his black Cadillac to roll up and for him to comfort her. She loved him and he loved her and she died thinking he didn't.
Gold was an awful, vile man. He hated sickness, he hated Gaston, he hated Belle for keeping this from him. She'd once told him that she hoped he died before her, because she knew he wouldn't be able to cope with losing her. She was right.
Gold called Dove to get the clock to Granny, and he kept the shop closed for the rest of the week. He trekked out to the graveyard on Saturday evening.
Belle French, her gravestone read (she never did change her last name to Gaston's), beloved daughter and wife. Gold frowned at the brief inscription. Six words on a slab of stone were all that was left of her.
Gold dropped his cane, sinking to the ground. "I'm so sorry, Belle," he whimpered. He reached into his jacket, pulling out a rose he'd bought at Game of Thorns. Belle's father never knew Gold as more than the town monster, but here he was mourning the man's daughter twenty-one years after her death. She was the only woman he ever did love and the only woman he ever would love.
"I would have come," he sobbed to the gray stone slab. "I would have come to you. But I was mad, Belle. I was mad and stupid and I refused to even set foot in the library. If I had I would have found your letter on the couch and I would have been there at your side." He pictured Belle, bedridden with a book in her hand but her eyes straying towards the window, watching as the seasons passed to fall and then winter, with no sign of him. "I love you, Belle. I was a coward. I should have told you that. I always loved you."
Gold forced himself to continue with his day as usual. He needed to collect rent. But for the first time in twenty-one years, he didn't delight in scaring the residents of Storybrooke into giving him their money. He just wanted Belle back.
In Granny's he stood behind a blonde stranger making reservations. Funny, he couldn't remember the last time the woman rented out a room at her inn. When Granny asked the woman her name and she replied "Swan, Emma Swan," Gold braced himself against his cane.
"Emma," Gold gasped for air. Everything came back to him. Being abandoned by his father, marrying Milah out of convenience, risking the scorn of the village to go home to his son, becoming the Dark One, losing Bae, falling in love with Belle. "What a lovely name."
Granny shoved the money in his hand and Gold escaped the inn as fast as his limp carried him. He bent over the bushes, retching for the second time this week. He thought he was awful in Storybrooke, but at least he hadn't intentionally been a jerk to Belle. He failed her in both timelines. She just wanted love but he shut her out and she died lonely and waiting for him.
Years ago, Belle had told him that he really was as dark as people said. Rumplestiltskin was almost never right about anything, but he was when he sneered, "Darker, dearie, much darker," back at her.