Ice Cream 2
Emma's charcoal eyes surveyed the cup which he held so gently in his hand, making note of a seeming affection she did not deem him capable of until today. She had a theory about the cup, which made her empathize with him in a way he could never know.
Him asking her to drive him seemed reasonable enough, even though she did catch his flirty tone when he said her name. But she could humor him just this once.
"Would you prefer the bug or the cop car?" she asked with a playful smile.
His lips twitched for a moment, almost forming a smile, as he made his choice. "The bug please. Though a cop car can be very exciting. But having recently been in one, cuffed, I'll have to choose the first option. It's more.. homey."
"Well, I'd hope so," Emma replied with a smirk.
He limped past her with the cup cradled to his chest. He had everything with him and was ready to leave, and so he hobbled by her side.
"Thank you," He said as they arrived at the car and he took place in the passenger's seat. He smiled at her as he buckled his belt, then cradled his cup close again in a way similar to Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies. Oddly enough, as he caressed the cup, his lips seemed to whisper just that word: precious. After a moment of calming down he smiled and looked at her.
"I appreciate the ride, sheriff."
She climbed into the driver's seat of the car and slammed the door shut. The entire rust bucket rang from the impact, making her roll her eyes as she buckled up.
"This car is so old it could give the items in your antiques shop a run for their money."
She pulled out of the station parking lot and into the street.
Mr Gold stared in front of him for a while with only his lips curling happily at her remark. His fingers still gingerly stroked the edge of his tea cup.
"Well, I owe you a reply." he said, heaving his chest but not looking at her. "I gave her my name."
He smiled up at the sight of the road in front of him. "I gave Regina the confirmation she was hoping for. She now knows I know." He clicked his tongue pensively. " I know about her. I remember."
Emma kept waiting for him to say something else, but when she realized that was the totality of his response, she felt stupefied by it.
"Your... name?"
He raised a brow.
"Yes, my name."
What was weird about it? He wondered, for it was the truth and nothing but the truth he had spoken to her. She had wanted to know and asked.
Emma knew it was the truth, which is exactly why she felt stupefied by it.
"So... '...?'"
He frowned at her and studied her facial expression for any signs of what was to come next, but she was clearly waiting for a reply of his side, and he folded his hands around the cup firmly as his face hardened.
"Yes, I am Mr Gold. But you shall see that when you ask the right questions you will get revealing answers, Emma." he breathed her name as his brown eyes darted to her and back to the road in turn.
"It seems we can stop here for a moment." he said as they neared Mary Margaret's apartment. "I hope you don't mind me intruding, but I am anxious to see that blanket of yours, and you can take this opportunity to ask me 'the right' questions."
Emma slammed on the brakes, making the rust bucket screech to a halt. She fixed Mr. Gold with an incredulous stare.
"Seriously?" she demanded, though there was no anger in her voice, just surprise. "Why are you so god-damn adamant about seeing that blanket in the first place?"
Her eyes then fell on his cup, that fragile little enigma, and she may have gotten her answer at that moment. She felt just as adamant about learning of its importance as Mr. Gold appeared to be about seeing her baby blanket. And she wanted to learn about the cup so she could learn more about him. So could the reason be mutual on both sides?
His brown eyes stared back into hers.
"Yes, seriously." he retorted. "I think you know just why."
He could tell by the look on her face, and the way she'd eyed his cup, that she was feeling a similar curiosity and would act on that. He had her in his pocket, so he thought, for she would take him inside and he'd be spending a little more time with her.
"That is, if you don't mind being alone with me in your apartment. I know Miss Blanchard isn't home just yet. But all I want is to look at your baby blanket, Emma. No dishonorable intentions, I swear." The moment he said so he regretted it.
The moment he said it, Emma's eyes grew wide and she laughed out loud. She felt herself turning pink again, and looked away quickly in a desperate attempt to hide it.
"I wasn't thinking... that," she muttered, still looking away. Finally, she turned back, smiling cockily, now feeling a little more embarrassed for him than for herself. "Fine. You've got your wish, but don't forget that now you owe me an explanation about that cup."
She took her foot off the brakes and turned into Mary Margaret's driveway.
Mr Gold got out quite decently after she'd parked the car and by the support of his cane, on which he leaned heavily, he managed to limp to the door and waited for her to open it. He allowed her to enter first, always the gentleman, and hobbled behind her.
Once in her living room he put down his cup gently and took off his coat before waiting for permission to set himself on the couch. His brown eyes showed his eager expectations.
"Lovely apartment, very Mary Margaret." He commented. "Have you ever considered getting a house for your own?"
"Yes, her decorative style is very unique. Personally, I've never been too good with... aesthetics. And I've tried, at first, but there didn't appear to be too many vacancies in this town. And by many, I mean none."
Emma watched him undress with a mild interest she herself did not notice, then took his coat from him and hung it up before taking off her own. Then she motioned him to sit on the sofa.
"I'll be right back," she said, then disappeared into her bedroom.
As Mr Gold got himself seated he wondered if Emma had disappeared into her bedroom to change into something more comfortable and would come out as a real temptress, seducing him on the couch and have his wretched day end blissfully. Naturally his thoughts were going too far and he quickly straightened his tie as he tried to focus on something else and waited for her to return.
Emma came out of her bedroom, dressed as before, but carrying her baby blanket, which was knit from white wool and had the word "Emma" stitched onto it in purple silk. Gold looked distracted to her, so she held the blanket out in front of him.
His brown eyes lit up and the corners of his lips twitched but he could not smile fully. He would have by the smile she had on her face, but it were her words that were so bitter-sweet that he did not find it in him to smile. Instead he studied the blanket and watched her step very close to him.
"Well, here it is," she began, then paused. What she was about to tell him she had only told one person before in her life, and that was Henry, her only relative and the only one she felt she could trust with the truth. She wavered, but she knew she promised Gold she would tell him. Besides, in return she would finally learn about that cup. "When I was a newborn... my parents abandoned me... on the side of a highway. This blanket was the only thing I had on me."
She laughed suddenly, a hollow, bitter laugh. "I guess they at least had the decency to wrap me up before throwing me out like garbage."
At her last few words Mr Gold reached out for her hands and caught her wrists, holding them as he looked up and into her eyes. His lips parted in a sigh and his eyes softened.
At the very moment he touched her, Emma felt the intense desire to distance herself as she had done her entire life, but she told herself not to be a coward and run. If she wanted to be a mother to Henry, if she wanted to show him affection, she first had to learn to accept affection from others. Even those as seemingly unlikely to give it as Mr. Gold.
So she stayed, and allowed him to draw her a little closer.
"Perhaps they had been left with no other choice, Emma." Mr Gold whispered his words to her as he drew her closer. "Don't ever think of yourself as garbage for you are not."
He wanted to touch the blanket but did not dare to. He knew the item must be holy to her. And such a lovely item it was. He knew he owned the cradle to which this blanket belonged, it was right up in his shop. Snow's cradle for Emma.
"Such a lovely name." he murmured, his eyes back on the letters on the blanket.
"Don't give up hope, Emma." His eyes twinkled as they returned to find hers. "Your parents did not leave you empty-handed."
"How can you say that... when all they left me was a blanker... and a name," she said coldly, her face set like steel in her bitterness.
His fingers curled around the skin of her wrists, clinging onto her almost, as a breathless whisper left his lips. "A name is the most powerful thing. It's like magic. It was the most wonderful thing they could have given you."
He drew her close now, not fully unintentionally pulling her onto his lap, he wanted to hold her but wasn't sure if she would let him. Yet he subtly tried.
She did not know how it happened, but suddenly there she was, sitting in his lap. He held his hands idly on either side of her, though he looked desperate to put them to good use. Again Emma felt the comfort, the familiarity of their closeness, but finally she succumbed to her fear. She got up from his lap hastily and sat down on the sofa beside him instead. Was it true then? Did he really have feelings was her? Or was it all a manipulation? He had manipulated her before, after all.
Having regained her composure, she decided to completely ignore what just happened and move on to the new matter at hand. She motioned at his cup.
"I've told you about my blanket, so now it's your turn to tell me about the cup. But may I share a theory with you first?"
He looked at her. "What's your theory, Emma?"
Emma relaxed a little and smiled at him gently, hoping her theory was true because then it would give her a reason to - Never mind. There was nothing between them, never will be. Then again...
She shook the thoughts from her head.
"Remember after Graham died, you offered me some of his things? Including a pair of walkie-talkies for me to play with Henry?"
He frowned, wondering what she was getting at.
"Yes," He said pensively whilst raising a brow. "I remember that..."
"Well, ever since you said how fleeting the moments we spend with children are, I could not stop wondering if you, well... had a child. And maybe the 'her' the cup belonged to was a... was a daughter?"
She fell silent then, heart beating with expectation.
His lips pursed and eyebrow quirked. The frown on his face indicated that she was onto something here.
"No, Not a daughter. I've never had a daughter." He whispered, sighing.
"The girl who chipped it was Moe French's daughter. He made a deal with me and the price was to have his daughter act as a caretaker of my house. She came to live with me, cleaned the house, made me tea." He gestured at the cup. "On her very first day she dropped that cup and it chipped. We-" he halted, "What we had was special. She thought herself in love with me and I wouldn't believe it so I sent her away. The result was that her father locked her up and beat her, and she committed suicide."
He pursed his lips and seemed to lose himself in thought. "I've always kept the cup."
He had deliberately not told her about his son yet, about his past. But he somehow could sense that she would suspect he had been a father and that she would ask sooner or later about it.
Emma nodded gravely. She knew what it felt like to deem yourself unworthy of being loved and then to blame yourself if a tragedy were to occur to your loved one. She could tell Gold blamed himself for what happened to the girl, otherwise he would not have kept the cup all this time. She still blamed herself for Graham's death, and now she wore his badge.
She knew there was something not entirely truthful to Gold's story, but it was honest enough, so she did not feel the need to push him any further. She did, however, feel the sudden desire to take his hand in her own and tell him it was not his fault, but she could not bring herself to do it. Instead, "May I see it?" she asked. She just wanted to inspect the cup, remark how its beauty must have reflected that of the one who chipped it, and then hand it back to him before moving on to the subject of Regina.
"If I may see yours." he said with a small smirk, gently handing her the cup as he took her baby blanket. He sniffed it, taking in her scent and the faint traces of old fairy tale land. His eyes closed as he murmured.
"Emma, you are remarkable."
He slipped the blanket out of her lap before she even had the time to protest. True, she would have let him see it either way, but the idea of it being forcefully taken from her made her shaky. Nevertheless, she now held his dearest possession in her hand, feeling its weightless fragility and inspecting its intricate design.
"It's beautiful," she said gently, "as I'm sure was the one who chipped it."
She turned to hand it back to him, only to see his face buried in the very essence of her childhood. Her hand twitched and the cup slipped out of her fingers, to come crashing down onto the hard wooden floor.
Being half-buried in her blanket, he only heard the crash before he saw it, and his brown eyes flew open wide in rage as he realized what had just occurred. His cup. His brilliant irreplaceable token of love, had been shattered.
Emma jumped in horror. Her eyes darted first to the heap of china on the floor, then to Gold. As she expected, he looked positively possessed by fury. Her lips parted as she sought for something to say, but what was there to be said? Nothing.
With his hands as fists around her baby blanket he looked at her, fire raging in his eyes and his teeth gritted. Mr Gold growled at the blonde sheriff.
"Do you realize what you have done?"
He needn't ask. There was nothing to do to fix this. She'd dropped his cup. Her expression, though, was similar to that of Belle the day she had dropped the cup. Instead of softening his emotions it made his rage only worse and he shouted at her.
"Have you any idea what you've just done?"
He flung his arms at her and trapped her against the sofa, nose inching closer. Her baby blanket was still in his left hand, pressed against the sofa's arm as he loomed over her and snarled at her. For a man his size he was incredibly strong.
"The only thing I had left to love.." His voice weakened but took on a coarse edge. "Now there's nothing for me left."
Her face took on a rigid, disapproving expression. She was not sure what was making her angrier, the way he was handling her, or the way he was handling her fragile blanket. Her fists were clenched on the collar of his dress shirt, but she did not try to fight him off, knowing it would only fuel his fury.
"Is there?" she finally breathed at him testily.
He scowled at her and shifted his weight, his body still pressed down on her hard and trapped her to the couch. His brown eyes were hard as they penetrated her, searching her for an answer to her question. When he found none he dipped his head and crashed his lips to hers hard. It was the only answer he wanted to give.
The kiss was demanding, forceful and full of his dominance. And as he retreated, pulled back from her, the anger was still visible in his eyes. He slid off the couch on his sore knee and groaned in pain, then started to collect the bits and pieces that had been left.
"A man without sentiment is the worst enemy to fear." he said as he tried to recollect his thoughts as he did the cup.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had hoped that would be his reply. She was fully ready to receive it, to be overwhelmed by it, though she knew she would not reciprocate. She expected it to be full of anger, passion, maybe even hatred, but the last thing she expected was for the taste, the smell of him to feel so familiar. It was a case of deja vu unlike any she had exprerinced before, and she had no explanation for it.
When he had finally released her, she sat up on the sofa and buried her face in her hands, racking her memory, but the feeling of deja vu passed as suddenly as it had overtaken her. So she turned her attention to her baby blanket, which lay in a heap on the arm of the sofa where Gold had left it. She straightened it out, folded it, and lay it gently on the cushion beside her. Then she knelt on the floor before Gold and began to help him pick up what remained of his cup.
"You are not without sentiment," she told him.
With shaking hands he tried to collect all the pieces as he glanced at her. His lips curled into a snarl. "What makes you say that?"
He'd almost used her name but it was too delicious to pronounce and somehow felt like it didn't fit in this situation. He was actually angry with her.
The vein on his forehead was throbbing as his brown eyes locked with hers. His left hand caught her wrist and stilled her movements.
It looked as if he was about to say something but then changed his mind and collected the last pieces.
"Have you got a bag? I'd like to take this home and try to mend it."
Emma poured the pieces she had picked up from her hand into his.
"I have a bag," she said, getting up and walking over to her handbag, from which she pulled out a tiny cloth change purse. She emptied whatever quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies were inside, then brought the purse over to him. "And I say that because for one you blame yourself for the girl's death." As he reached for the purse, she gently took a hold of his wrist, steadying his hand where it was. "Are you sure you want to hold on to the pieces?"
His eyes stared daggers at her.
"I do not blame myself." He said through gritted teeth. "It's all Mr French's doing. He was her father, he abandoned her, hurt her."
His eyes turned wide in horror as he mirrored Moe French's behavior to his own in the past. Baelfire... How he missed his son.
Sadness appeared in his expression now as he yanked his wrist out of her grip. "I need this." He murmured, cradling the porcelain pieces as delicate relics and placing them gently into the bag, even the tiniest of shards was added.
"Just like you need your baby blanket, Emma."
Emma's expression softened into sympathy as she watched him pour the shattered pieces into the purse she gave him. She glanced back at her blanket lying so neatly folded on the sofa behind her, her thoughts wandering to what Henry had told her about Mary Margaret and David.
"I suppose if I ever find my parents, I won't need that blanket anymore," she said with a small smile.
He looked up at her. "You suppose?" Then he frowned.
"Your blanket is like a relic. Even if you found them would you want to throw it away?" He shook his head, brown hair dancing.
"Keep it, Emma, keep it." He got up with some effort and leant heavily on his cane as he smiled at her, a painful grin.
"It's not childish to have something to cherish." His eyes fell to the floor at that as he wondered what it was that Henry must be cherishing. The book he'd given to Mary? His eyes darted back to Emma.
"You could bring me home now." he wanted to fix his cup.
"Hold on," Emma stated, taking a step toward him. "You promised to tell me what you told Regina earlier."
He turned to face her wearily, a small fatigued smile on his face. "My name, Emma. My true name."
He thought she wasn't ready for it yet for she hardly believed the boy about the fairy tale theory, and grinned painfully.
"We all have more than a surname, dear."
She had a feeling she would not like what she was about to hear, but she was not one to let something regarding Regina slide.
"So what is it then, your given name?"
His lips curled in a combination of a painful smile and a snarl as he bared his unkempt teeth at her. She could see it was hard for him to give this away, but he was not one to lie. Not ever.
The wrinkles near his eyes and on his forehead increased at the difficulty of pronouncing this confession and could only speak with reluctance.
"Rumplestiltskin."
AU: Thank you all for your reviews.
Kendra Luehr: Can you imagine none of it is edited XD? It's a copy and paste.
DragonRose4: He will share as much as he can. If he doesn't want to share the information he would just keep his lips shut or dance around the subject with his words, I am sure =) I am glad liked it
BlooperLover: There is more to this, but I am not certain if I should post it or leave it at this. What would you say? There are a lot of nice Gemma stories out there so I am not certain if this one is actually needed XD
