AN: This one is nice and fluffy, with a little bit of Red Cricket thrown in for fun. It's a Storybrooke AU, appropriate for pretty much everyone. (PG)
"Mr. Gold! Mr. Gold, wait up!" shouted Rosie French, racing after the older man she'd spotted leaving Granny's Diner. The old clock tower hadn't worked for as long as anyone could remember, but — for an equally long, and unbroken run of days — Mr. Gold never failed to visit Granny's Diner at 8 AM each morning, pick up a cup of coffee and a news paper, and saunter on down the street at exactly 8:15. The old clock might have only been right twice a day, but it marked a very special time for the girl: it was the time when, every morning without fail, she began chasing after Mr. Gold.
As usual, he didn't pay her any attention, just kept his slightly unsteady gait and walked away — toward his pawn shop. For him, she supposed, 8:15 was the time each day when he began the somber and dutiful work of ignoring her.
"Hey, Mr. Gold," she grinned, finally catching him. The crisp autumn morning left the ghost of her breath on the air, puffing out in little clouds as she caught her breath from running. On the other edge of the sidewalk, Pongo was dragging Archie — nearly knocking the thin man into a parking meter — and they gave Gold a wide berth.
"I have a new knitting pattern this week, here — this is the scarf I told you about last Wednesday," Belle continued, stepping a little further out of Archie's way when Pongo finally broke free and took off at a full sprint toward the Diner. That was the other thing that happened every day: at 8:16, when the clock was just one minute out of sync, Pongo bound into Granny's to get his morning treat.
"Yes, yes, very nice dearie," Gold grumbled, not really looking at the scarf or the shambling therapist chasing after his dog.
"Oh, do you think so?" she grinned back, sounding pleased. "You should keep it, then. I guess you lost the last one I made you."
"It's amazing what the cleaners throw away," he bit back, still walking briskly while she trotted to keep pace. The sound of his cane beat out an irregular rhythm against the pavement, underscored by Archie calling hopelessly for Pongo to sit and stay.
"Well, one man's junk is another man's treasure. I guess that's the whole point of a pawn shop, right?" she asked, beaming at him. Rosie quickly cut off Mr. Gold's path, wrapping her arms around the man — half-hugging him — and twisting the coarse, woolly scarf around his neck.
"It itches," the acerbic pawnbroker remarked, unimpressed. Rosie had been foisting off hand-knitted keepsakes and baked goods on him for as long as the clock had been stuck, and he sincerely didn't want anything to do with any of it. Not that that would ever stop her: not in the least bit — the daily temptation of Mr. Gold as she'd come to call it was her favorite morning ritual. Ruby tossing Pongo a vanilla wafer while the dog ran circles and nearly knocked Archie over in an attempt to keep the waitress to himself was a close second, though, and she could hear the veritable Caucus Race playing out from down the block.
"I'll have to try a finer yarn," Rosie championed, refusing to let the look of bored tolerance on his face get her down. "We can talk about colors over tea and cake later today?"
"I think not."
"Come on, Mr. Gold," Rosie grinned, stepping aside to walk next to him rather than blocking his escape. "One of these days you're just going to have to give in and accept I'm committed to fattening you up a bit."
"Oh yes, your father and I will make quite the set," he sneered, looking down at her — the few inches of height separating them always felt like several feet when he looked down on her and her family.
"I don't think you're anything like my Dad," she told him, holding his gaze and turning suddenly serious.
"Will that be all, Miss French?"
"You can call me Rosie, Mr. Gold," she reminded him. "Or Rose-Marie, or just plain Rose, if you like."
"I could do that, yes," he acknowledged as they finally drew up alongside the door of his pawn shop. He fiddled with the lock as she attempted to say goodbye. That he wasn't going to do so, and had no plans to start, remained unsaid.
"Well how do you feel about something in plum?" she tried again, returning to yarn choices in light of his typical refusal to converse politely.
"It doesn't make one jot of difference to me, dearie," Gold growled, before slipping into his shop — making the bell jingle in time with Pongo's distant barking — and slamming the door behind him.
Rose-Marie French was a public safety hazard. All the slip of a girl, nineteen if she was a day, by his estimation, knew how to do was chatter at him and follow him around like a lost little lamb. The only thing in town more annoying was Dr. Hopper's mongrel-dalmatian, and one day the Mayor was going to sanction both Hopper and Mr. French with a fine for disobeying leash laws. Someone really did need to restrain the child. She said the strangest things, mostly nonsense, and then pressed him to accept irregularly formed, lumpy knitting and slightly crisp cookies.
It all went right into the trash, naturally. He couldn't accept gifts from his tenants, and he didn't want to accept anything from Miss French, anyway. She was pretty enough, in the ultra-casual, homebody way; someone like Archibald Hopper would be dumbfounded by her favors, and so the sooner she started pestering one of the half-dozen or more other pedestrians who crossed their path each morning, the better off everyone would be. Most of her life was wrapped up in taking care of her father's failing floral business, yet — inexplicably — she still found time to annoy him every single morning.
With the old town clock over the library still stuck in place (when would Madame Mayor get around to fixing it?), sometimes it felt like the only way he could count the days was by looking at whatever new monstrosity Rosie French had made.
They weren't that bad, really, but none of them went with his tailored suits or sleek cane and briefcase, so none of them lasted more than the ten or twelve steps it took him to reach the bins in the back room. Once he'd even turned around and walked in the opposite direction of his own shop, tossing the sugar cookies she'd pressed into his hands to Hopper's mutt, but the daft animal only ever wanted the damned wafers the Lucas girl fed it. Rose-Marie, of course, had turned around and — quite literally — taken it all in stride. She simply would not let him be. The woman was a perfectly unrepentant waste of sugar and good wool; it was annoying, nothing more.
Though… she was almost friendly, he supposed. If Mr. Gold had any need for friends, she might have found herself welcome. As it was, the woman infuriated him beyond even the possibility of a carnal understanding, and he was only too glad to be rid of her during the hours when her father's shop occupied her.
Gold heard his little bell before he heard the voice of whoever had entered his shop.
"Mr. Gold?"
"Coming," he called, setting aside a broken clock. He'd have to get the damned thing to Marco one of these days, if he ever wanted to turn a profit on the intricate cogs and woodwork. When he rounded the corner of his work-desk, he was met with the smell of fresh air and the unwelcome sight of Miss French.
"Oh," he groaned, a bit disappointed that she wasn't one of his tenants dropping off the over-due rent. "It's just you."
"Just me," Rosie agreed, grinning at him like always. The foolish little girl didn't know when to leave well enough alone, and it was going to get her into trouble one day.
"Can I help you Miss French? Looking to buy something?"
"Well it is a shop," she agreed. "But no, I'm not buying. I am here on business, though!"
"For a change," he said, glaring.
"Dad wanted me to drop off the rent early; something about paying the piper, but you always struck me more as the spinning kind."
"What is that supposed to mean?" She always spewed this nonsense when she thought no one else was listening, and it gave him a head ache.
"Nothing, nothing," Rosie giggled, lost in her own secret meanings. "Here," she said, offering him a roll of bills as wide as her fine wrist.
"Feel free to leave any time you're ready," Gold sneered back, snatching away the money.
"In that case…"
"No. Wait, that wasn't an invitation…"
"…I think we're way over-due for that tea…"
"…for you to make yourself at home in my place of business, so if you'll just…."
"…and lucky for us, I always carry a couple of bags!"
"…move along, you're dismissed."
Rosie held a pair of old, mis-matched tea cups from his collection and a zip-lock baggie full of instant tea supplies in her hands, and she was looking at him expectantly. He'd moved to the door, and was just about to pull it open, the titter of his bell teasing but not quite releasing its high-pitched peals onto the air. They were at utterly cross purposes, and Gold found it — and the girl — as frustrating as ever.
She left Mr. Gold the same state she always did when she'd cornered him into sharing a cup of tea: huffy, indignant and on the verge of frothing at the mouth. Archie was standing on the street corner, holding Pongo's leash despite how tangled it was with his legs, and the dog was using its rump to push him further and further away from Ruby. Of course Pongo didn't want to share the pretty brunette; the thought of Dr. Hopper competing for attention with a dalmatian made her smile, and she felt her nose wrinkle. It was always the same scenario in the evenings, more or less, and a few seconds later the waitress fished another wafer from her coat pocket for the animal. The trio went their separate ways just as she drew near enough to see the frustrated look on Archie's face, and her thoughts returned to the curt pawnbroker.
He was such a baby sometimes, as though spending twenty minutes in her company was a chore. They could talk about anything, anything at all, if he would ever stop complaining long enough to let her get a word in. Still, much to her friends' and family's chagrin, she wouldn't give up on him. They'd been in Storybrooke for decades, and she had nothing better to do than look for that long-lost spark of recognition in Rumpelstiltskin's face.
Oh well, thought Belle. He didn't remember — none of them did — and she couldn't tell him, for fear of being locked away like some kind of crazy person.
He was still such a magpie, though: collecting everything he could find, obsessing over price — not really understanding the value of any of it, and the only thing he ever threw away was the proof that she loved him. She'd start on yet another scarf that night, one of hundreds she'd made for him that would — like its predecessors — be inevitably thrown away or tossed to the dogs. The best she could do was try again every day, and wait for some small, tiny chip to appear in the unfeeling porcelain veneer of the Mayor's curse.
Fin.
